Getting started with UW photography -- any book recommendations?

Good morning. I am just starting my voyage as an UW photographer. I recently purchased the Canon g9 and it's housing. Now I am looking for a good book to learn some tricks of the trade. Any recomendations? Thanks in advance.

Melanie

This link courtesy of Alcina was a great help to me.
Welcome to DigitalDiver.net!

Baltimore Mel:

Good morning. I am just starting my voyage as an UW photographer. I recently purchased the Canon g9 and it's housing. Now I am looking for a good book to learn some tricks of the trade. Any recomendations? Thanks in advance.

Melanie

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Actually, the best info you can find(FOR FREE no less) is here on this board..........get ahold of a post by Alcina, she will have more info than any one book can ever give you on her sig..If you have any problems 'fiinding' her, let me know & I can get it to you......The G 9 is so new, I doubt you'll find any 'official' written material for UW use out there but some here have written about that camera here--- do an above search(just type in Canon G 9) & that will get you started....Again. think Alcina & you'll have IT MADE........good luck & let me know...............GEAUX TIGERS..

Thanks so much to you both. I think this is enough to do the trick! I really appreciate your help!

Mel

When I started, Essential Underwater Photography Manual: A Guide to Creative Techniques and Key Equipment by Denise Nielsen Tackett and Larry Tackett was recommended to me. It is a nice introduction with a lot of useful information, but some of it was more confusing than anything, especially the way they explain exposure compensation for CFWA shots (close focus, wide angle). I think a problem of most if not all beginners books is that a lot of space is wasted on which equipment to choose and how to use it, a step that most people have probably already taken when they look for literature on how to take good pictures. For me, the most useful sources have been this forum and several other online sites, especially the Underwater Photo online magazine. It's a bit tedious to go through all the magazines, but you can download them for free and you will find all the info you need: Underwater Photography magazine

The other source that has helped me more than anything is just getting my hand on any uw photo material I can get. Go to your local used bookstore and go through old dive magazines; clip photos and front pages from magazines, ads etc. and try to learn from them -- what lighting did the photographer use for this shot? How did he or she approach the subject? How is the image composed? You will find pretty quickly that there are basically only 6 or so ways of taking an underwater picture. All the pictures out there are variations on one of those categories. The one book that sums this up in an incredible helpful way is "Essential composition" by Jim and Cathy Church. That one is a must, I'd say.

Good luck!

Marty Synderman is a world-class UW shooter. He has excellent online courses. You have a chance to learn from a "real world" photographer who teaches "real world" techniques.
The Underwater Photographer, Underwater Digital Photography Classes: Improve your underwater photos

Enjoy!

If you are looking for more free stuff you can jump on the wetpixel boards that helped me anwser a lot of questions. There is also a couple of threads talking just about the g9