Underwater Photography Gear for Beginners

The first camera I ever took underwater to shoot portraits was an old point-and-shoot and a cheap plastic housing I had from my scuba diving days. My friend Gerard wore a pair of overalls in the local public pool for an art project, I pointed the camera at him, and it turned out. Not brilliantly, but well enough that I thought there’s something here. That image, shot on a camera that hadn’t been made for 10 years, was the beginning of everything I do now.

The question I get asked constantly is some version of: what do I need to start?

The honest answer is less than you think. It depends entirely on what you want to create and what your budget is.

The thing that matters more than your camera

Before getting into gear, one thing worth saying: your camera is only as good as your technique – doubly underwater. A beginner with an expensive housing and a nervous model may produce worse images than someone comfortable in the water with an action camera and a subject who trusts them. Gear opens up possibilities, it doesn’t create them.

Get your water skills right first. Avoid spending on equipment before you’re comfortable underwater.

Why RAW files matter underwater

Before going through the options, it’s worth explaining why RAW comes up as a differentiator, because it matters more underwater than almost anywhere else.

When your camera captures a JPEG, it makes decisions about white balance, colour, contrast, and sharpness, then compresses the result and discards the original data. You get a finished file, but you’re locked into the camera’s decisions. If those decisions were wrong, you have limited room to fix them.

RAW files store exactly what the sensor captured and leave every processing decision to you. Underwater conditions make that latitude essential for a few specific reasons.

White balance is nearly impossible to get right in-camera. Water absorbs warm wavelengths at different rates depending on depth, angle, and clarity. A white balance that’s correct at one depth is wrong at another. Shoot RAW and you can set the white balance to anything you want in post, after the fact, non-destructively, sometimes with a single click!

Colour shift is constant and unpredictable. Even in a controlled pool environment, the amount of blue or green cast in an image changes with depth, with the angle of the light, and with how far your subject is from the lens. A RAW file gives you the data needed to recover warmth that a JPEG has simply discarded.

Underwater shooting is high-chaos, low-correction. You can’t always stop mid-breath to review and adjust exposure so RAW means those images are recoverable, JPEG means they’re not.

None of this means you can’t produce good underwater images from a JPEG-only camera. Plenty of people do. But if you’re investing in a setup for serious portrait work, RAW is not a nice-to-have, it’s what the post-production workflow is built around.

Don’t own a camera yet?

Action camera: GoPro or DJI

$300–$700 | Depth rated to 10m/30ft without additional housing

Purpose-built for underwater use, waterproof to ten metres/thirty feet without any additional housing, and solid for both stills and video in good conditions. The ultra-wide fixed lens is a limitation for portrait work (everything close to the lens appears large, everything pushed away appears small, and there’s no way to change that) but adding a red filter ($15–$30) can correct the blue-green colour shift and is worth doing for any natural-light work deeper than 8-10ft.

Most action cameras shoot JPEG only for stills. Good for video content, social media, and limited retouching. Not ideal if RAW output matters to you.

Waterproof compact: OM System Tough TG series

Around $500 | Depth rated to 15m/45ft

The benchmark in this category. What was sold under the Olympus name is now OM System, but the TG line hasn’t changed in what matters: it’s waterproof straight out of the box, rated to 15 metres, shoots RAW, has a fast f/2.0 aperture, zoom lens, and gives you full manual control. Paired with a small underwater strobe, this becomes a capable setup for portrait work – and you can travel with it in a jacket pocket.

A good place to start if you don’t already own a camera. Buy it, put it in the water, and learn what underwater portrait photography actually demands before spending anything else.

Already own a camera?

Budget option: flexible waterproof bag

Under $300 | Depth: pool use only

Brands like DiCAPac and EWA Marine make flexible waterproof bags that will get your camera into a pool without a large upfront investment. Always submerge the bag without your camera first to check the seal, and don’t go deeper than say 10ft.

These are a genuine entry point for testing whether you want to pursue this further. Not a long-term solution, not suitable for anything beyond shallow pool work, and button access is limited enough to be frustrating. But they exist and they work at a basic level.

Mid-range: Outex silicone housing

$400–$1,000 | Depth rated to around 10m

Outex makes silicone skins with a range of glass front and back ports. The advantage over a bag housing is that you’re working with the camera you know, buttons in the same spots and Outex offers sync port options that allow connection to external strobes – which opens up off-camera lighting. I work with Outex as an ambassador and the system is a solid entry point for photographers transitioning from dry land who want to bring their existing body underwater.

The limitations: controls access is more restricted than a hard housing due to pressing through the skin, and these aren’t designed for deep water or hard-use conditions. For pool work and shallow open water they perform well.

Professional hard housing: Aquatica, Nauticam, or Ikelite

$1,500–$15,000+ depending on system | Depth rated to 60–100m

A full machined housing manufactured specifically for your camera body gives you depth ratings to 100 metres, full access to every button and dial, and proper sync ports for connecting strobes and trigger systems. My own setup is a mirrorless body in an Aquatica housing with an 8-inch dome port, connected via the Trigger Fish radio trigger system to my above-water studio strobes.

Aquatica offers excellent value in the metal housing category. Priced nicely between Ikelite and Nauticam, they’re the best option for a serious underwater shooter who doesn’t want to spend an arm and a leg.

Nauticam probably the most refined system available but you pay for it. They have precision machining and ergonomics that make a real difference during a long day in the water.

Ikelite uses polycarbonate rather than aluminium, which makes it lighter and more affordable – a solid choice for photographers working in pools or open water environments.

The housing is body-specific, which means upgrading your camera usually means a new housing. These setups are heavy to travel with, and maintenance is ongoing. The ceiling on the environments you can create in, however, effectively disappears.

A note on surf housings

When researching hard housings, you’ll come across surf housings from brands like Aquatech. These are built for shooting generally at the water surface, capturing surfers on waves and they are not really designed for underwater portrait work. Surf housings are mostly built without sync ports for connecting external strobes. If you want to shoot surfers, a surf housing is exactly right. If you want to shoot subjects below the water with controlled lighting, it probably isn’t.

What about lighting?

Every option above works in good ambient light. The moment you want to work in lower light, add colour, or create separation from the background, you need to add light.

Constant LED dive lights give instant visual feedback and work for both stills and video, but even a very powerful unit can disappear against full sunlight five feet from the subject.

Underwater strobes run on standard batteries, connect via wired cable or fibre optic cable, and produce a clean, powerful flash. Strobes are only useful from the waterproof compact upward – smartphones and most action cameras have no way to connect to or trigger an external strobe.

Start with ambient light first. Learn to use what’s there before adding complexity.

Where to start

If you’ve never put a camera underwater: start with what you own, or buy the TG series. Spend money once you’ve confirmed this is something you want to pursue.

If you’re already a photographer: a flexible housing or Outex for your current body is the most efficient entry point. You’ll shoot with what you know and focus on what’s actually different – the water.

If you’re committed to underwater portrait photography as a discipline: save for the hard housing. The flexible housing is a good intermediate step, but the hard housing is where the limits disappear.

Brett Stanley is an underwater portrait photographer and cinematographer based in Long Beach, California. He runs underwater portrait photography workshops from his Long Beach studio and internationally. Details at underwater-photographer.com.