Taking good diving videos and pictures when scuba diving depends on the equipment you use, patience and good buoyancy. While maintaining good buoyancy while diving and managing to keep still are important, you can also use an underwater tripod to make sure the footage isn’t wobbly. Practice shooting and swimming in confined water or a pool. Your camera may be negatively or neutrally buoyant making you less aware of your surroundings and take extra care with your fins. Swim slowly, trying to keep your movements subtle and flowing. Keeping it closer to your core when diving will help your camera stay stable.

At depth, the colour red is lost, making most dive videos come out blue or green. Bad visibility can also make taking a photo or video while scuba diving. Use additional lighting to help with colour and brightness but the best idea is to use as much natural light as possible. This is why most underwater photographers and videographers like taking footage in shallow water as natural light is abundant and the colours are vibrant. You can also shoot from the shadows, more access to light and greater visibility will make for better footage. 

If you have a digital camera, become familiar with the white balance functions. If you’re shooting macro using lights, perhaps you can leave it on auto. In ambient light with a red filter, manual white balance is needed to balance the colour temperature in the photo. Manual white balance usually entails pointing your camera to a white slate or something white and taking a photo, sand can work too. 

If you’re shooting with a GoPro, capture short 10-30 second videos. Take a lot of footage which can be edited together. Longer videos take up a lot of memory and can be time-consuming to post on social media. Newer GoPro models have stabilization integrated into the camera itself leading to smoother videos. A great app to use for editing dive pictures and videos is called Dive+, with a simple click your footage is colour corrected and ready to be shared.  

A distinct background makes it easier to capture the object, whether it moves or not. When an object is moving while you are diving, try to keep it in the central frame for a period before stopping and letting the animal swim off. Using a tripod is effective for shooting macro objects while diving. Picking the right subject with the correct amount of lighting is important for taking great photos and videos. Research your subject, every marine animal has specific behaviours depending on whether it is day or night and the time of year. Knowing and understanding your subjects will help you capture better encounters.