Light & Water affect on Color #3

Part 3: Color Filter: Orange spectrum.As light is absorbed by water a similar loss of detail occurs. Blue has the least detail and is the longest lasting light. Many underwater shooters add color filters for color reproduction. I do not use filters in this way because the down side is just as tragic. White balance must be performed at each shooting condition; it’s just that simple. Make sure your camera can perform a white balance or has an auto tracking sensor built in. Not the same as setting the camera to FULL AUTO MODE. Auto tracking is more complex calculation of white relative to the available light. Keep in mind that these sensors are designed and setup for real world use, and even though the ocean is part of the real world for some of us… its not what the engineers had in mind. Modify camera settings to anticipate ocean conditions. Filters will bring detail to the over all image, however filters tend to ‘remove‘ color throughout the spectrum; all color passes through the same filter so all is affected.

Do not think of it like sun glasses designed to knock down the power of light. The condition underwater is the opposite. Not enough of the sun’s rays are getting through.

Camera settings and color correction are more of a balancing act; change or ‘replace‘ colors vs. alter or ‘remove’ it. Picture a triangulated scale; R, G, B. If we alter one the other two, or just one, must be adjusted to a degree to keep the color full. This isn’t to say colors have to be in balance at all times, many times there is simply too much color. Think of it as adjusting the amounts without loosing their combined value. The result of dumping green could be a washed out look. If only the green mid tones are removed; the information total doesn’t equal 100%.

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Green adjust should definitely consist of tuning down green, while added some red to boost detail and blue for perception. Remember that scale? You can slide the trays in and out the arm and/or add weight to it’s tray. There are many color adjustments and no one way. Keep in mind they all require digital color information to work.

Underwater Cameraflyers don’t get second chances. It’s critical to understand not only the camera but also light properties to anticipate in water for each dive. For best results shoot nothing less than 4:2:2 sampled color because ALL underwater footage needs TLC in post and on broadcast. The true colors of coral are there; waiting to be discover through a variety of techniques. Use them to achieve YOUR diverse look and style. Your video shot today may be the best to stand the test of time for that particular coral reef, especially if mankind fails to protect the oceans which provide us with so much.

Part 2:

Nearly all scuba divers below 50 feet have peered through blue-green or cyan ambient. While diving the human eye tends to adapt to the prevailing ambient color and correct for it, because we perceive the correct colors in our brain. This is a psycho eye-to-brain adjustment in the “perception” of the warm colors; like tweaking the hue as it enters our brains. Get those scuba eyes on dry land and the exact image is suddenly perceived as incorrectly blue or green.

Brain Twister: Say this line and see if they can say it back correctly. There’s only 10 words! The sky is blue, said Hue to Lou. The sky is not blue, to he said Lou.

Photographers can use specialized film emulsions; chemical reactions that affect the negative by manipulating the heavy cyan hue. This is not my area at all so check another source. These special emulsions work backwards. Where a “filter adds” tint to the incoming image, the chemical reaction is to “remove tint” from the film.

But not many professional underwater photographers are using film. I recently shot an interview with Stephen Frink in his Key Largo Studio. His photos in my opinion are some of the best in the world. He’s shooting digital these days. No longer having to drag 6 camera down. Many photographers like working in the dark room; the romance of watching the image develop, doing the liquid Photoshop thang. Digital is very different, and its through the use of digital that I have any knowledge of color. Not an expert, but a user, among other things.

Underwater Problem: When an image is soupy cyan.
Let’s review for a moment: Red is the shortest wave length; blue the longest. Shorter the wave, the quicker the absorption. Longer waves remain so everything ‘turns’… green or a little deeper blue. That’s the natural light.

The logic to this problem goes like this: Long frequency equals less detail because the waves can’t carry as much detail. Blues are always the dirtiest color channel, closest to black. Open a Photoshop file, switch to the Channels tab (you must have ’show colors in channels’ selected in the preferences). Look at just the blue channel. Not much contrast. When you have to lean forward to study it, how much detail do you see? If you were shooting DV or HDV blue is going to be assigned a color sampling of one or ZERO! The blue is estimated from a combo of the other two colors.

From this it seems logical to sample most where the detail is, in the SHORTEST frequency waves with the most often repeated color freq. Ever notice in the corner of your eye the flicker from a 60kHz CRT monitor? The huge graphics monitors were way faster in redraw, like 80 - 100 kHz, to deliver more perceptual detail and truer color. To this day some graphics professionals prefer CRT monitors, but flat screens are approaching them for accuracy and resolution.

In an air environment; light is stable and simple. It can also be controlled with ease; add a light here a reflector there. Below the surface light is ever changing, always having an affect, then again it may not change at all. The surface tension properties multiplied by the properties of each and every drop between it and the subject and the camera has a say in what gets to the sensors. What gets reflected, what gets refracted, what gets absorbed, what gets through. The effect all this has on the shot is still random. But…

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…the resulting beauty of underwater color is spectacular. To really see the colors of coral requires the use of artificial light. Video can recreate perceptually correct colors with the proper balance and effective range. That’s next! Also something I learned from Mr. Steve Wynn in a 2006 interview.

Light Properties: Coral reefs display the most impressive color combinations in the natural world. Photos and video bring rich unique colors and textures to the human imagination. I was shocked to hear that only two percent of the world population will see a coral reef. So video is important bringing the experience to the masses.

Light is altered by water, at times dramatically relative to air. Some color is absorbed or reflected by particles. The first affected color is red, the shortest wave length. Continuing around the color wheel; orange, yellow. Blue is the longest wave length in the color spectrum and the only color to penetrate deep into the sea. Eventually even blue is overtaken by the ocean’s depths leaving no light and total blackness.

On a perfect day: red is gone after 15 ft. Look at a color wheel and moving away Orange slips away after 30 ft. Yellow and violet are equally absorbed by 70 ft, they are equal in length and equal distances from blue. Then green the last hold out is lost by 85 ft. and blue by 100 ft. Below that threshold everything is shades of gray; eventual black. Using this hypo Black would be defined as the absence of all color.

Check out these samples of underwater gone bad. [singlepic=16,320,240,,][singlepic=17,320,240,,][singlepic=18,320,240,,]

Not even Black and White is as simple as Black and White: In print the opposite is true. White is typically considered the absence of all color as in the ‘blank canvas’ always begins white.

My two cents: from Scubaboard.com forum

I’m an editor by trade, so I really understand color space. We specialize in underwater HD now. I don’t use any color filters especially on the camera lens. My opinion is; you’re adding color and masking the true color temperature of the shot. Sometimes we use a defuse on the light, but this (if at all) is to soften light and reduce candlepower with defuse or blue. However it won’t fix the background water. Filters might alter the color to appear more correct, but you can’t control the hue of the filter underwater either, so how do you know if you have the right tint? And what happens when you DO turn on a light? A white light? Now that lenses filter is counter-productive because the subject is now lit properly. Can’t light the entire scene, so what to do.

White balance is an underwater art. We use custom presets and we can usually tell by the conditions at the time of the dive. Sometimes we’re wrong, requires re-deploying which takes about an hour, but the results are there. Fact: Red is the shortest light wave. Blue the longest going around the color wheel. As you go deeper more color is absorbed until even blue cannot escape. The result is total black.

Red is dead right away, within feet. That’s why a white concrete pool looks blue, it’s the blue reflecting off the bottom of the pool OR sand underwater. So, adjust your camera’s settings to compensate for what will be lost on the way down. It takes time and patience to achieve excellent results. If it was easy everyone would be an underwater cameraflyer.

I’m not giving up secrets here, but I can say the ultimate fine tuning of color must be done in post. No way around that with so many variables. Nature has Her own ideas for filtering color and rarely are we let in on the day’s details. One dive, two areas? Close and yet each area may yield color differences that must be frame matched to look right if you want to mix up the shots. Check out our clips, some are free, but don’t let that stop you from spending a few bucks. Do you have a specific question on color? Post it here or email me directly at studio@hd2o.tv
Regards,

A very important function of the super cold ocean water and water weight is keeping the earth’s mantle and magma is balance. The sea floor is ever changing, churning, cleansing everything that comes to rest on the bottom by turning into magma.

The process of regeneration is the function of cooling molten hot magma as quickly as it escapes the crust. It’s a big job and it takes a big ocean to keep the earth in balance. This is the ultimate cycle of life.

The Wall Street Journal published an article (October 26, 2007) about the use of concrete balls used to create artificial reefs. Todd Barber has been building artificial reefs for a decade. What once was barren has been transformed into mini reefs, and marine animals have moved in. Mr. Barber’s group, Reef Ball Foundation has cultivated about 4,000 reefs in 55 countries. There is no questioning the success. It’s working! Some of the reef balls were not colonized with coral or sponge and in ten years they have attracted marine animals on their own.

What the article didn’t mention was if the use of concrete has any environmental impact on the ocean. Concrete is bound by a chemical process and I am not familiar with the compounds. I wonder if concrete is safe. There is a used tire dump off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale. At one time this was considered a good idea and a way to get rid of unwanted used tires. This turned out, as you might expect, to be a disaster. No coral grew and fish were driven from the area by the toxic decay of rubber. I believe the tires are being removed. The project deemed a total failure. This is not the case with reef balls.

Following WWII the military was ordered to dump munitions and damaged materials into the sea. Again with disastrous results. That too is being slowly pulled from the sea off Europe. The clean up is an international nightmare that may take decades to finish.
We know a lot more about the ocean, but facts are often over looked in the name of man. Coral is growing successfully on the concrete balls, and many scientists are involved with Mr. Barber’s project so I don’t doubt or question the concept. We can only hope the results are successful and a long term solution even as the concrete slowly gives way to the relentless wear of the ocean.

Another group mentioned in the article is EcoReefs, Inc offering ceramic shaped corals, and a company in the Philippines molds coral to the shape, texture, color and chemical signature of the real thing.
Reef Ball Foundation will install 100,000 reef balls this year alone and that’s double what they placed last year. Mr. Barber is a hero for his efforts and optimism in the race against reef damage with 550,000 balls in place around the world today.

Another resource for reef regeneration is artificialreefs.org and our dear friends in Key West Reef Relief is a grassroots non-profit conservation organization of scientists dedicated to Preserve and Protect the Living Coral Reef Ecosystem. They have provided a lifetime of studies and relative information in an organized web site, plus Reef Relief founders have published a new site dedicated to scuba diver with information on the coral issue. Check them out in their new home inside the Conch Republic Seafood Company on Green Street. Of course you’ll have to stay for lunch or dinner or both.  Read more about Conch Republic in this flog under RAVE

Another amazing quality of water is that water temperatures tend to stick together in layers.  Warm water currents tend to float above colder water which is more dense.  The cold dense water tends to be heavier and circulation is the result as it sinks.

The coldest densest water, super cold sea water, is so laden with salt that is doesn’t freeze at all.  Instead it flows to the deepest parts of the ocean.  As it circulates and travels from the poles it begins to warm on it’s movement toward the equator.  This super dense/ super cold salt water is about 80 percent of the world’s ocean.

Only a small percent of ocean is warm tropical surface water.  Scuba divers visit a very small amount of the total ocean mass.

Water is amazing and has unique properties.  It exists in three states or forms; solid, liquid, and gas.  Ice, water, and steam forms can exist in the same place and time, and all three can be in contact where ice contacts warmer water and creates fog.

The ocean and the cycle of water on earth is the source and sustenance of all life on earth.  You could say it’s important in all forms and variations.  Ocean water doesn’t freeze at 32 degrees F like fresh water.  It freezes around 28 - 29 degrees F depending on salinity and nutrient content.  Some salt water is land locked and usually these ’salt lakes’ have very high salt content due in part to the lack of circulation and evaporation.   The salt lake in Utah and the Dead Sea are prime examples.  Salt content also affects buoyancy; the greater the salt the more buoyant the objects floating.  Tropical ocean water will hold more salt due to greater evaporation than waters closer to the poles.

How much water is held in the oceans?  This is the type of question my own children would ask so I thought it would be great to post a few answers.  Here’s what I’ve found:

Fist it’s important to understand that a cubic measure is equal to a unit of measure (foot or meter for example) that is equally wide, tall, and thick.  A cubic foot is 12 inches tall, by twelve inches wide, by twelve inches deep making six equal sides.  Like an ice cube has six sides.  Imagine a cubic mile; one mile wide, high, and deep.  That is a lot of water, but that’s only establishing the unit of measure.  The earth oceans hold more than 320,000,000 cubic miles.  320 million wide, high, AND deep.
The oceans are salt water.  How much salt?  A few tons?  How about 50,000,000 (fifty-million) tons?  Not even close.  The oceans contain an unfathomable 50 million-billion tons of salt.  I can’t even begin to explain that number… and it’s representing tons of salt, not pounds, tons.

More fun oceanic fact coming!  Enjoy.