River Photography Help

Compared to lakes and oceans, photography in rivers has one odd problem I face. That is sediment gets stirred up very easilly and obscures pics. It gets worse when the light is low (overcast, later in the day, etc.) triggering the flash which reflects every particle.

To make things more complex fish love being in the sediment as it stirs up food for them. Thus hang in the hardest to photograph areas.

Does anyone have any hints for river photography?

What you're describing is commonly referred to as backscatter. It is not confined to river photography. In fact, for me it is more of a problem in still water. One partial solution in rivers is to face upstream or sideways in the current so that the sediment you stir up always flows away from you.

Also, the on-camera flash just makes it worse. In most situations you will get better photos by turning it off. Ideally, flashes shouldn't be used underwater unless they are offset a foot or more from the camera so that they don't directly illuminate the suspended particles between the camera and subject. Instead, take photos during the middle of a bright, sunny day so that you don't need to use the flash.

Lastly, but perhaps most important is to photograph in the clearest water you can find. There's not much that better technique or equipment can do to improve photography in murky water.

There's a lot of information about backscatter on the web. Just google something like "underwater photography backscatter" for more information.

Thank you for the advice, I will definately look up backscatter. As for facing upsteam, I find the minnows have an annoying habit of hanging downstream from me where the suspended sediment that causes backscatter drifts to. That is when they are not trying to quickly excape from camera view.

I usually just consider any fish that happens to be following me as off limits, unless I sit in one place very still and wait for the sediment to clear downstream. Having fish face directly as you isn't really a good way to get a shot of them anyway, unless they are erratically darting around and you might catch a profile of one, in which case, you're still hard pressed to get a good shot off. Minnows are hard to photograph, and generally I don't even try unless I can find them otherwise occupied (at a feeding station, spawning on a chub nest, etc.) I have a little point & shoot and I pretty much never use the flash except in very clear water, with a still subject, hiding in darkness (I took a decent madtom photo last week with flash on). In general, I try for the brightest conditions possible and turn down the exposure on my camera so I get quick shutter speeds (and not blurry photos). However, it is usually necessary to tweak the photos in photoshop before they really look good, which is time consuming.

Edited by Kanus, 04 September 2012 - 09:18 AM.