BoatU.S. - May/June 2012

Black marlin — my favorite species for shooting leaping billfish. (iso800, 24mm, f8, 1-3200)

For point-and-shoot digital cameras

THERE ARE MANY good waterproof point-and-shoot cameras on the market today, which are excellent choices for boaters. Any point-and-shoot camera over six megapixels will make a fine 8x10 print. Here’s how to make your pictures pop:

n Set your camera to the highest resolution/quality JPEG. Set the image to the largest size. You’ll get fewer photos, but you’ll be able to enlarge them later to any size you like.

n Set the ISO (which governs the camera’s sensitivity to light) to auto, or 400. No need to go below 400.

n Avoid using the “digital zoom” feature, which decreases picture quality. You can always zoom and crop on your computer later.

n The fill-in flash makes a big difference in lighting up the boater’s face. The hats we wear aboard make dark face shadows. For shots of people or grip-and-grin photos of your catch, go to the “portrait” mode on the scene selector and then set the flash to “on.”

n Tell your friends to stay put till they see the flash go off. There’s a delay between pressing the shutter release and the shutter actually taking the photo — this is the major drawback to point-and-shoot cameras and makes action shots more difficult to capture.

n Bracket your shots. Take one without a flash, the same one with a flash, and yet another from a different angle (higher, lower, or from one side), to make sure one of them gives you what you want.

n Shaking up the expected angle makes for more interesting shots. Instead of the straight-on shot, go up to the bridge and take the photo, with your subjects looking up and smiling.

n Many waterproof point-and-shoot cameras can take excellent shots in shallow water. Water clarity is the most important element. Hold the camera just below the surface while a friend tries to lead the fish in front of it. Take a lot of photos; hopefully a few will be properly framed. (The underwater bonefish photo on the contents page was taken with a $250 Canon D10.)

n Don’t erase photos from the camera while you’re on the scene. You just can’t accurately judge the quality of the exposure and focus from the small LCD on the back. Download them into your computer and only then dump the bad ones.