{"id":585729,"date":"2026-08-15T18:22:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T18:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/585729\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T18:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T18:22:24","slug":"dive-first-shoot-second-underwater-photography-lessons-from-two-commended-filmmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/585729\/","title":{"rendered":"Dive first, shoot second: Underwater photography lessons from two commended filmmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even as an adult, American Emily Rhyne would barely go past her knees into the ocean without having a \u201cton of anxiety\u201d. But then, in 2021, something clicked.<\/p>\n

During a trip to Egypt, the former New York Times video journalist was inspired by divers at the Red Sea. \u201cI didn’t have a dive certification and it kind of got in my ear then that [it] would be something cool to do, like a cool adventure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Finally, in 2025, Emily conquered her fears by gaining a diving certification and she was immediately hooked.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos FromDigital Camera World<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 2<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

Emily Rhyne is a freelance video journalist. She formerly worked at the NY Times, where she won an Emmy Award<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/p>\n

By the time Emily was immersing herself in the world of diving, Canadian Nadia Aly, a Canon<\/a> Explorer of Light and self-professed \u201cwater baby\u201d, had already racked up countless hours with a camera in the ocean.<\/p>\n

A longtime dive tour operator, she\u2019d spent years capturing footage of some of the biggest ocean dwellers, like sperm whales and orcas.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

But what Nadia and Emily will both tell you is that learning to use a camera underwater is just one half of the battle. Scuba diving opens up an alien world full of mesmerizing creatures but, to capture footage of them, you need to be a strong diver first and foremost.<\/p>\n

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\"Portrait
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Nadia Aly runs whale diving tours across the globe through her company Scuba Dive Life Expeditions. In 2020, she was named Ocean Photographer of the the Year (Image credit: Nadia Aly)Learn to dive before using a complex camera underwater <\/p>\n

Emily\u2019s diving journey began at Cozumel, a small Caribbean island off the southern coast of Mexico, where she eventually racked up her first 100 dives. Throughout all of these, Emily shot on a trusty GoPro Hero13<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The best camera deals, reviews, product advice, and unmissable photography news, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t imagine doing it another way,\u201d she said. I always say to people [\u2026] when you’re 100 feet underwater it’s not the time you want to be messing with your [camera] settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABOVE: One of Emily’s early GoPro<\/a> videos from Cozumel<\/p>\n

While the GoPro wasn\u2019t the filmmaking powerhouse setup she\u2019d been used to while at the NY Times, her focus was on mastering basic dive technique \u2013 and the simplicity of the action camera<\/a> was just the trick when concentrating on buoyancy, safety or rough conditions.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want all these things to be second nature. I cannot emphasize enough that I’m still learning like every single dive,\u201d she said. Diving the same reefs day in, day out at Cozumel also meant that Emily began to learn how specific species of marine life behaved.<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 3<\/p>\n

\"Eel.\"<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

\"Turtle.\"<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

\"Shark\"<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

Learn to read the animal, not chase it<\/p>\n

Dive number 70 and Emily came face to face with an eagle ray. The spotted, giant-winged predator was throwing up sand from the ocean floor as it foraged for food, but was comfortable with the videojournalist’s presence.<\/p>\n

Emily gradually came closer until she was \u201cright there\u201d next to the ray, managing to record an intimate sequence before another group of divers scared it away.<\/p>\n

In Nadia\u2019s eyes: \u201cYou really have to learn how to read animals and approach them. You have to gain their trust.\u201d According to the experienced underwater filmmaker, getting the \u201camazing shot\u201d isn’t only a lens decision, it\u2019s a behavior decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to get close to this animal in the water that’s swimming, that’s faster than you, that’s larger than you,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t charge at them\u201d.<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 4<\/p>\n

\"Eagle<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

\"Eagle<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

\"Eagle<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

\"Eagle<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)<\/p>\n

Knowing the place is just as important<\/p>\n

After Cozumel, Emily crossed the world setting up base on Komodo, a paradisiacal Indonesian island and diving hotspot. Here she performed some 200 dives, all at the same resort, resisting the temptation to constantly move between destinations, giving herself \u201ctime to sink into a place\u201d.<\/p>\n

During her last week on the island, Emily shot her Postcards From Komodo video. The impressive footage was the perfect example of how the best underwater shoots don\u2019t come from ticking off as many dive locations as possible.<\/p>\n

Instead, they happened once you have a feel for the textures of a place, like how the morning light hits a dive map, things Emily said \u201ctake time to notice\u201d.<\/p>\n

ABOVE: Watch Postcards From Komodo <\/p>\n

Start with a basic, not overwhelming camera<\/p>\n

Roughly 100 dives in and Emily went \u201cfull throttle\u201d. By this stage the GoPro 13, which had been the perfect starter camera, was beginning to hold her back. So she got her hands on a Canon EOS C50<\/a>, a Nauticam NA-C50 underwater camera housing<\/a> and a trio of professional lenses, including the RF 24-50 f\/4.5-6.3 IS STM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Emily now had some serious underwater filmmaking firepower, but the tradeoff was in equipment size and weight \u2013 especially when diving in strong currents, which is something she says beginners should avoid.<\/p>\n

Unlike Emily, Nadia threw herself in at the deep end. Back in 2010, she came stumbling out of a Monterey, California dive shop with \u201c10 boxes\u201d of equipment in her arms, including a Canon EOS 1-D<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"Diver
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(Image credit: Nadia Aly)<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at the guy (store attendant), I’m like, I don’t know how \u2013 how is this supposed to like\u2026 how does the strobe, how does the camera go in?\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

However, splashing out on high-end gear right away was a tougher learning curve. And Nadia was about to find out the following week while diving at Bonaire, a small Dutch island off the north coast of Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Bonaire and I started taking photos underwater and every photo was black,\u201d she said. \u201c[But] I kept at it [and] I would say by day four I started getting some good exposures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Master your gear before the big encounter <\/p>\n

Nadia turned her initial Bonaire failures into her biggest lesson. Over each of the next five years, she spent roughly three-hundred days diving while mastering techniques like strobe positioning, understanding her camera settings and choosing the right lens.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor every trip I went on, I always asked questions, always learned from other people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Through trial and error, Nadia now knows that her Canon EF 8-15mm f\/4L Fisheye USM<\/a> is ideal for extremely close whale encounters, while wider or zoom options, such as her RF 24-50mm f\/4.5-6.3 IS STM<\/a>, come in handy when photographing sperm whales and orcas farther away.<\/p>\n

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\"Humpback
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(Image credit: Nadia Aly)<\/p>\n

In 2017, after years of mastering dive technique and her equipment, the big moment came.<\/p>\n

While scouting for dive locations in La Ventana, off the northwest coast of Mexico, Nadia came across a feeding frenzy of mobula rays. \u201cThere were 20,000 plus of these mobula rays, I’m not joking. It’s not an exaggeration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She snapped a still of the swirling \u201cvortex\u201d of rays, which, three years later, went on to win the prestigious Ocean Photographer of the Year 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"A
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Nadia won Ocean Photographer of the Year 2020 with this fantastic shot (Image credit: Nadia Aly)Be prepared for everything to go wrong <\/p>\n

According to Nadia, at some point, things will go awry with your gear. \u201cAs an underwater photographer, the biggest thing for preparation is redundancy,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have to have double of almost everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dive tour leader always works with duplicate lenses, dome ports, batteries, O-rings and even a second setup. She either dives with her Canon EOS R5 Mark II<\/a> or R6 Mark III<\/a>, leaving one rig aboard just in case \u2013 like when her underwater housing flooded in La Ventana.<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 2<\/p>\n

\"Coral<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Nadia Aly)<\/p>\n

\"Sea<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Nadia Aly)<\/p>\n

\"Coral<\/p>\n

\"Sea<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hold your camera upside-down so the water fills the dome port and you abort your dive and you go to the surface,\u201d explained Nadia. \u201cYou hope that you didn’t ruin your setup because that’s an expensive leak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that you can think of that could go wrong, you need to just be ready for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best camera is the one you don’t have to think about<\/p>\n

While Emily and Nadia might have taken different paths to becoming underwater filmmakers, for both of these oceanic creators, this is a craft of two disciplines.<\/p>\n

You need enough camera skill that the equipment doesn’t distract you from what\u2019s happening in front of the lens. And at the same time, you need the ability to navigate the underwater world while using a camera almost instinctively.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Diver
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(Image credit: Emily Rhyne)You might also like\u2026 <\/p>\n

We’ve got an entire section dedicated to underwater photography<\/a> where you’ll find tips, tricks and tutorials. And here’s our pick of the best waterproof cameras<\/a> along with the best underwater housings<\/a> for cameras and phones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even as an adult, American Emily Rhyne would barely go past her knees into the ocean without having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-585729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}