Raw Transcript
I get quite a lot of questions about over-under they’re also called 50/50 or split style photos since I first got hold of one of the earliest GoPro dome ports I’ve been trying to develop the process of getting these over/under self split shots and there’s quite a bit of information out there but I want to give you a quick rundown of do’s and don’ts and pros and cons of different equipment because I get this question quite quite a lot so as we talked about in the dome port video you’re going to want a big dome port the bigger the better for over/under split shots you do see some custom-made ridiculous huge dome ports out there and this is exactly what they’re for in terms of off the shelf this is an aqua tech 8-inch dome port this is going to be probably what you’re going to end up with if you want to get something that gives you the best chance of getting crisp over/under photos so the reason it’s hard to get an over-under photo where the subject above the water is in focus and under is in focused the reason that’s hard is because as I explained again in the dome video shooting through air you thought you’re focusing on the object as the distance away that it is underwater there’s effectively an extra lens involved because of the surface of the water curving around your dome so that means you need to focus closer underwater than you do above water and if you’re trying to get one photo which includes above and below water at the same time you can only focus at one point so you need to focus at a point that’s a happy medium between the two and then adjust your depth of field in order to focus enough on each one so that you get a reasonable shot so it sounds quite complicated but rule of thumb is focus focus a reasonable distance away to get above water in shot I choose a meter usually and then use a narrow aperture so f/8 f/11 if you can go for a more narrow option that then it’s your the noise in your photo is going to suffer because you’re probably going to have to boost the ISO unless it’s the blazing hot day and you’re in Tahiti or Samoa or somewhere with beautiful crystal-clear water and then it’s going to be hard to crank it much above f11 before you start having to really bump up the ISO which means a noisy image so if these concepts are going way of your head then don’t worry about it what you need to know is you you can’t rely on the focus above water for underwater or vice versa so try and pick a happy medium focus if you can test this beforehand all the better get as narrower a parabola as possible as high and f-number as possible start with Apple Evan that’s too dark go to f/8 don’t bother with anything less than that I don’t think because you’ll run into one of them will be way too blurry basically and it will be usually below water because above water is quite easy to focus on so next thing you know one is to create a nice split so on some of these don’t ports like that are designed for over/under like the Kinect they have a little line on it which is quite helpful but generally speaking you’ll get used to it so if you’re a pro tech housing for instance you’ll you’ll know roughly where halfway is you’ll see the water line along there you can always poke your head around the side to double-check often I’ll try if you really if over/under is the thing you’re going for the main thing then I’ll rotate my camera through 90 degrees to portrait orientation and that just gives you more chance of getting more over and more under and as a postal a landscape orientation with the split along the middle so there’s there’s different techniques you can use to which which kind of maximize the opportunity but the main thing you want to do is get as wider lens as possible quite often I get questions from people who say would the Sigma 16 m—eleven 4 be a good lens for over/under and you no doubt could shoot over under photos with that lens but it’s not it’s not super wide you want to get fisheye there’s no there’s no better lens for over-under than a fish so it can see everything pop everything below as long as you get that line pretty much in the middle officialize going to get a pretty good half-and-half shop and you’re gonna better see a lot of it the other thing is the wider the lens generally the more depth of field you get the more things are in focus so wide lenses are essential for good over/under photography I would get the widest fish eye you can the biggest dome you can I would go for the highest F number you can for the narrowest aperture to increase that depth of field even more all these things are just adding up to try and get a big big big depth of field because that’s what you need in order to get under and over the water in focus at the same time so that’s why for instance a GoPro or an iPhone with a dome port is not a bad idea because they’ve got small small sensors which means the depth of field is bigger it’s hard to get a really shallow depth of field with a GoPro with an iPhone the iPhone is a bit different because it does have computational photography elements but that’s another story you won a small censored camera will give you bigger depth of field and what you want for over/under is big depth of field so if you’ve got a full-frame camera a Canon 5d a Sony a7 three then you’re gonna struggle you’re gonna have to whack that that aperture the F number as high as you possibly can just to eke out as much depth of field as you can so big domes help big F numbers small sensors so that’s why if over under is the main thing you’re going for a GoPro with a port or a dome port is as good I can’t get as good results as five Canon 5d and an eight inch down port and a Canon 8 to 15 mil lens so there’s pros and cons obviously and and what you will find is that processing above and below water because they obviously very different scenes you need a lot of a lot of dynamic range to capture that usually again unless it’s blazing sunshine and shallow water and clear water as well so I think I think in an ideal world you want a smaller censored interchangeable lens camera so perhaps an aps-c or micro four-thirds you want a super wide lens a male fisheye you want high F number f11 you want sunshine you want clear water you want shallow water as well because the the the visibility also cuts off dramatically the deeper you go so if you’ve got shallow water if you’re in a rock pool or you’re in a the shallows in Barbados or Tahiti then you’re going to get a lot more detail underneath water so lots of different things you need to know in order to get the best out of it if you just want to just want to try it get a GoPro and get a don’t port and have a go see what you think that’s going to be the most user-friendly way of doing it if you if you don’t then get yourself a fisheye and crank up the f-number and see what you get because it’s super rewarding when you get a nice one and it’s one of those unique styles of photos that people who don’t surf and who-who don’t spend much time in the water like you and I do it gives them a this magical feeling of oh my gosh oh my goodness that’s what going on under the water all the time when you’re swimming around on the surface like yeah I know that because it’s when I ducked over I look at the waves and snorkel or it’s a magical experience for people and I think this type of over/under shot can deliver that to them like no other type of shot can so it’s definitely worth putting the time in to get this get this right and hopefully those tips will point you in that direction and I’ll help you get the right gear and the right settings to get the best over-unders that you can