My underwater video looks very blue or dull without much color. What is wrong?
Water acts like a filter. It removes warm colors (primarily red) from light that passes through it. The more water the light passes through, the more the warm colors get filtered out. The most effective way to add warm colors back into your video during daytime is to use a color-correcting filter on the camera. URPro is one popular brand of color correcting filters for underwater video. A decent housing should include a color-correcting filter with option to remove and replace it underwater. Also, get close to your subject. The less water you are shooting through, the less distance the light has to travel from the subject to the lens, and such, less warm colors get filtered out by the water. Use of video lights is another great way to add warm color back into your foreground subjects that are within 3-4 feet of the camera. Finally, learning to utilize a camera’s manual white-balance control underwater can significantly help normalize the appearance of color.
