California, La Jolla. If you go snorkelling in La Jolla, you may have a small underwater camera with you to record your underwater experiences. In my next article I'll give you some tips for your underwater pictures of the La Jolla sea lions. The following tips are not meant for underwater photographers with high-end camera equipment. Instead, they are a few simple tips that can be easily implemented with the small fun camera.
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time of day
The best time to snorkel in La Jolla is between 10 am and 2 pm. When the sun is higher the fish are more visible and the colours under water are more vivid. In the afternoon there is usually more wind and the water can become more turbulent.
The Colours
Under water, the red tones become less and less visible with increasing depth. Green and blue tones dominate. A magenta filter, which you place in front of the lens of your underwater camera, can help. If you don't have a filter, you can possibly set the white balance of your camera to "under water". Alternatively you can photograph in RAW format and then adjust the white balance during image editing.
Underwater Lamp or Flash
The more sunlight the water brightens up, the better you can see the individual colour spectra under water. If there's not enough sunshine or you're diving too deep, you can use an underwater lamp or underwater flash to restore the color variety.
Half-Half Shots
Now comes one of my favourite photo tips for underwater pictures of the sea lions: Especially beautiful are also so-called half-half shots. So photos, where the lower part of the picture is under water and the upper part is above water. It's not that easy to position the camera exactly during waves. The easiest way to do this is with a larger lens. With a small action camera it takes several attempts until it works. But what definitely works well with a small action camera is the imaging of reflections under the water surface.
Still Images from a Video
Fish or sea lions are damn fast underwater. Often faster than my own reaction speed. So in some of my pictures the animals were cut. Do you know that? To catch the fish and sea lions anyway, you can try the following: Make a video instead of single photos. Then you can create a still from the video. This is easy with the VLC Media Player:: Bis zu der gewünschten Stelle im Video navigieren, dann ein rechter Mausklick auf das Video, im sich öffnenden Fenster “Video” auswählen und dann “Videoschnappschuss” anklicken. Fertig. Inwieweit euch die Qualität des Standbildes aus dem Videos genügt müsst ihr einfach mal mit eurer Kamera ausprobieren.
If you want to edit your videos, for example shorten, cut or join, I can recommend the free video editing program DaVinci Resolve. On YouTube there are several videos with instructions for use.
Back to main article “Schnorcheln in La Jolla – die besten Tipps”.
Here you will find another article that will certainly interest you: “Seelöwen von La Jolla – Tipps fürs Beobachten und Schnorcheln”.
