Guide to Nighttime Underwater Photography

Ah, night diving – a mix of mystery, thrill, and perhaps a hint of spookiness. There’s something undeniably exciting about jumping into the ocean in the dark, armed with a torch, not knowing what’s out there beyond its light; nighttime underwater photography can be thrilling.

For those of us who can forego (or delay) happy hour, night diving can be an equally fun way to bring out our inner adventurer. When it comes to photography, one thing is certain: night diving unlocks a world of photographic opportunities that don’t exist during the day.

Though you lose the vibrant blues and wide-angle reef vistas that can be captured underwater in daylight, diving at night can also open up new creative possibilities. Dusk dives bring unique light patterns, and night dives set the scene for rare critters that are only active at night.

If you want to get even fancier, specialized night photography techniques like fluorescence and blackwater photography let you capture marine life in almost otherworldly ways.

Of course, nighttime underwater photography isn’t without its challenges. But with the right preparation, tools, and a splash of creativity, you’ll be able to create some of the most artistic and unique images in your portfolio.

In this article, we’ll go over a few different forms of nighttime underwater photography and present tools and techniques to help you get started with each.

Let’s go night diving!

Types of nighttime underwater photography

Just like with daytime photography, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to shooting underwater at night. Different types of night dives each have their own opportunities and challenges that require specialized camera setups, lighting, and techniques.

In this section, we’ll go over a few types of nighttime photography, and I’ll share my sample setups and initial jump settings to get you started.

Of course, there’s no universal ‘perfect’ camera setup for any of these dives, and I’ll admit that some of my own gear could use some serious upgrades. The examples I share here are simply meant to be used as a guide as you experiment with your own camera setup and accessories.

I’ll also include my personal jump settings, which are how I set up my camera before hitting the water. These aren’t hard-and-fast rules—just a handy starting point.

Once I find subjects to shoot, I adjust my settings depending on conditions and behaviours. These settings are just a springboard, so feel free to experiment and adapt based on your gear and personal shooting style.

As with daytime underwater photography, nighttime underwater photography can be broken down into two subcategories: macro and wide-angle. We’ll look at a few types of each below.

Read more: What Equipment Do You Need for Underwater Photography?

Macro photography

When the sun sets and ambient light disappears, we’re no longer able to capture the big wide-angle scenes that are visible during the day. Without natural light to add depth to the scene, wide-angle shots often lose depth at night, limited to the light from our artificial lights.

As a result, many forms of night photography focus on macro instead. We’ll go over a few types of macro night photography below.

Read more: A Guide to Underwater Macro Photography

Macro critter photography

Most of the time, when a liveaboard, dive resort, or dive shop offers a night dive, it will be done on a reef or in muck, with a focus on looking for macro critters.

At night, plankton is more plentiful, and critters like crabs, worms, sea slugs, and cephalopods come out to feed. As a result, night muck dives are a treasure trove for macro critter enthusiasts.

The setup and techniques are often the same as those used for muck diving photography during the day, but the subjects and behaviours might change.

Read more: Top Tips to Improve Your Underwater Macro Images

My sample setup

The gear for nighttime macro is typically the same as daytime macro. Here’s my go-to kit for macro at night:

• Camera: Nikon D850
• Lens: 105mm macro lens
• A longer macro lens allows for greater working distance with shy subjects
• Diopter: Nauticam SMC-1 on a flip holder
• Having this on a flip holder allows me to switch between macro and supermacro when needed
• Lighting: Dual Inon Z330 strobes
• Snoot: Backscatter MF-1 light with snoot attachment
• I keep this light and snoot setup in my pocket and bring it out only when I need to isolate subjects from busy or distracting backgrounds
• Focus Light: BigBlue 3800 VTL
• This has a 100-lumen red light mode, perfect for sensitive critters

Sample jump settings

• Shutter Speed: 1/250s
• Aperture: f/22 for regular macro, f/32 for supermacro (adjust for depth of field as needed)
• ISO: 400
• Strobes: ¼ power (adjust as needed)

Tips for succes

Here are some top tips for a successful night macro photo outing.

Bring a low-power red focus light

Many nocturnal critters are less sensitive to red light than to white light. For example, bobbit worms will retreat into their burrows when exposed to white light but will come back out if switched to red light.

A low-lumen red light (100 lumens or less) usually doesn’t disturb most sensitive critters and will enable you to capture more of their behaviour. If you find that a critter seems sensitive to white light and tends to hide or run away, try switching to red light instead.

Keep in mind, though, that stronger red lights (500+ lumens, for instance) will still startle most critters. My BigBlue VTL3800P features a 100-lumen red light mode, which works perfectly as a focus light for sensitive subjects.

Bring a snoot

Using a snoot opens up many creative opportunities, both during the day and at night.

Learning to use a snoot properly will help you add more creative portrait photos to your portfolio.

Read more: How to Use a Snoot for Underwater Photography

Blackwater photography

Here’s one of my favourite fun facts: the largest migration in the world in terms of biomass happens every single night in our oceans! This phenomenon is known as Diel Vertical Migration, where every night, hordes of zooplankton rise from the depths toward the surface to feed.

Even better, they’re followed closely by an entourage of predators, including all sorts of larval fish, molluscs, and more. This means that, if we dive over deep water at night, we can see and photograph a variety of critters that normally live at extreme depths during the day.

Many of these critters are colourful and strange, almost alien-like. There’s a reason they call blackwater diving “the closest thing to outer space on Earth”!

However, many of these fascinating critters move quickly and erratically, so capturing them in photos can be quite a challenge.

Read more: An Introduction to Blackwater Photography

My sample setup

• Camera: Nikon D850
• Lens: Nikon 60mm macro lens
• A fast-focusing, shorter lens is ideal for capturing erratic subjects
• Strobes: Dual Inon Z330 strobes
• Focus Lights: BigBlue VTL8000P-MAX x 2
• One light is set to spot mode to scan for subjects, and the other to flood mode for focusing
• Each light has a red-light mode with 500 lumens. For subjects sensitive to white light, I switch both focus lights to red mode, for a combined 1000 lumens of red light
• Lens Accessory: Nauticam MWL-1 Macro to Wide Angle Lens on a flip holder
• This is in case something especially large shows up, such as a large blanket octopus. We’ve also seen marlin, mola mola, thresher sharks, and more on blackwater dives!
• Buoyancy Aid: Stix large float ring
• The MWL-1 is very heavy underwater, so the float ring helps balance the weight

Sample jump settings

• Shutter Speed: 1/250s
• Aperture: f/29
• ISO: 400
• Strobes: ⅓ power (adjust as needed)

On blackwater dives, I typically leave all settings alone except for my strobes. If a subject is translucent, I’ll bump up the strobe power, and if it’s reflective, I’ll lower it as needed.

Tips for success

Blackwater diving requires skill and preparation, so use these tips to maximise your success at blackwater photography.

Master your buoyancy

On blackwater dives, you’re not hovering over a reef, you’re suspended in the water column, and critters can easily draw you deeper.

Having good buoyancy is key, and you may have to abandon subjects when they get too deep.

Read more: 6 Essential Dive Skills for Underwater Photographers

Work your way up

Depending on where you are, blackwater dives can last up to 2 hours, so it’s crucial to be careful about your dive profile. I typically start as deep as I’d like to go and gradually work my way up, finishing near the surface as my air gets lower.

I like to spend the last 10 minutes of my dive right at the surface of the ocean, as species like flying fish tend to linger closer to the top. Calm seas at the surface can also open up opportunities for creative reflection shots.

Use red light strategically

Many blackwater critters are sensitive to white light and will flee as soon as you shine it on them.

Switching to red light often calms them down, but even here, it’s worth experimenting. Different species, and even individuals, react differently, so adjust your lighting based on their behaviour.

Watch for reflective eyes

Many blackwater subjects have translucent bodies and highly reflective eyes, which can easily get blown out by your strobes.

To avoid this, underexpose the body slightly and bring up the brightness in post-processing. It’s easier to recover shadow detail than to fix overblown highlights.

Read more: An Introduction to Using Strobes in Underwater Photography

Fluorescence photography

Technically speaking, fluorescence is the name of the physical effect shown by some materials when they absorb high-energy light and re-emit it immediately as lower-energy light. Many animals, both on land and underwater, exhibit this trait due to special proteins they produce.

When illuminated with the right colour light, these creatures glow with bright neon colours; in other words, with the right setup, the underwater world becomes an ocean disco rave at night!

What sets fluoro photography apart from regular macro photography is its specialised setup. To “excite” fluorescence, you’ll need a blue or UV light source, as this triggers the glowing effect in fluorescent proteins.

Similarly, you’ll need blue excitation filters for your strobes. Then, to isolate the fluorescence and block out other colours, you also need a yellow barrier filter, both for your mask, so you can see the isolated fluorescence, and for your camera, so you can capture it.

Some of the usual suspects for fluorescence include crustaceans, nudibranchs, eels, and certain fish species. When in doubt, slap on your mask barrier filter and take a closer look – you never know what might be glowing!

Read more: How to Photograph Underwater Fluorescence With Blue Light

My sample setup

• Blue Light Source: Sola NIGHTSEA light
• The Sola NIGHTSEA torch is specifically designed for fluorescence diving and has a strong blue light in both spot and flood modes. Spot mode is great for finding critters from a distance, while flood mode is for focusing.
• Mask Barrier Filter: Fire Dive Gear Custom Mask Filter
• Though the NIGHTSEA torch comes with a small yellow mask barrier filter, I find that it’s too small and finicky to use in practice. The Fire Dive Gear custom mask filter is made to fit your personal mask, making it a much more comfortable choice. You send in a tracing of your mask, and they’ll create the perfect fit.
• Camera Barrier Filter: Tiffen Yellow #12 67mm screw-in filter
• I mount this on a flip holder attached to my macro port, which allows me to easily switch between fluoro photo mode and regular macro mode mid-dive. You can also screw it directly onto your macro port.
• Strobes with Excitation Filters: Dual Inon Z330 Strobes & Nightsea Excitation Filters for INON Z-330
• These excitation filters are made specifically for the Inon Z330, but other strobe brands have custom excitation filters as well.

Sample jump settings

• Shutter Speed: 1/160s
• Aperture: f/8
• ISO: 400+
• Strobes: Full power

Fluoro photography differs a bit from standard macro photography. Since most fluorescence is relatively faint, you’ll need to let in as much light as possible from your strobes and camera settings to capture it.

Furthermore, the added excitation filters and barrier filters reduce the amount of light that reaches your camera sensor, which means you need to blast your strobe power and open your aperture as much as feasible.

Don’t be afraid to bump up your ISO if needed as well. My personal preference is to shoot underexposed and to bump up the brightness in post instead of fiddling with my ISO underwater, but there’s nothing wrong with shooting at a higher ISO.

Tips for success

Here are my top tips for successful fluorescent photography.

Keep your mask barrier filter on for spotting

With your yellow mask barrier filter on, non-fluorescing areas appear very dark.

Though this darkness can take some getting used to at first, it helps fluorescent critters stand out from quite a distance; you’ll be impressed by how far away you can see anything that fluoresces!

You’ll need to remove the mask barrier filter to see properly when actually shooting photos, but get in the habit of putting it on as much as possible to more easily find subjects.

Switch modes sparingly

While it’s tempting to switch between regular macro and fluorescence setups mid-dive, try to avoid doing so unless something truly unique catches your eye.

The process can be time-consuming to switch around the filters and camera settings, and you risk missing other fluorescent subjects in the meantime.

Different individuals fluoresce differently

Even if you see multiple animals of the same species, sometimes it’s worth checking them all to see if they have different patterns. Different individuals of a fluorescing species may each have their own unique fluoro patterns!

Wide-angle photography

While macro photography can present more variety on night dives, there are also some unique wide-angle opportunities you can take advantage of during night or twilight hours.

Though the variety of wide-angle subjects you can encounter on a night dive is limited compared to macro subjects, with proper planning, nighttime still lends itself to beautiful wide-angle dives.

Twilight glow

Though not technically at night, it’s worth mentioning that the moments just before sunset (or after sunrise) can create stunning lighting conditions.

As the sun moves toward the horizon, its low angle creates glowing, golden beams that can serve as an interesting backdrop for wide-angle shots. To take advantage of this kind of light, find subjects near the surface of the water to photograph.

Sunset and sunrise split shots

Again, not technically a night photo, but still worth mentioning for the unique wide-angle opportunities. Golden hour isn’t just for landscapes; it’s also ideal for split shots to showcase the beauty of both the underwater and above-water worlds.

When the water is calm and there are subjects close to the surface, try your hand at some sunset or sunrise splits! These types of photos can take some planning to execute properly, so have an idea of what you’re looking for before you go out to shoot.

Read more: Underwater Split-Shots – Top Tips for Over-Under Photos

Wide-angle subject photography

Just like how many small critters come out at night to feed, the same is true of some larger, wide-angle subjects. For example, many species of octopus hunt at night, and many sharks are also nocturnal, such as catsharks, epaulette sharks, horn sharks, and more.

Marine megafauna like mantas and whale sharks can also be seen feeding at night when lights are used to attract plankton.

Because these types of dives tend to be species-dependent, be sure to research or ask your dive guides what kinds of wide-angle opportunities might be present where you are!

My sample setup

I use the same setup for most types of underwater wide-angle photography:

• Camera Body: Nikon D850
• Lens: Nikon 8-15mm fisheye lens + Kenko 1.4x Teleconverter
  I’m a fan of the teleconverter to get a little bit of extra reach, and I don’t find that it degrades the image quality too much.
• Dome Port: Nauticam 230mm glass dome for split shots or Nauticam 140mm glass dome for standard wide-angle underwater photography.
  I normally prefer using a minidome for the smaller setup, but I bring a big dome if I plan on doing split shots!
• Strobes: Dual Inon Z330 strobes with diffusers.
  In low-light conditions, diffusers help prevent hotspots and soften your strobe light.

Sample jump settings

• Shutter Speed: 1/250s
• Aperture: f/8
• ISO: 400
• Strobe Power: ½ power

Tips for success

Follow these tips for successful nighttime wide-angle shots of your subjects.

Take advantage of calm conditions

Just like with macro photography, there are unique opportunities for surface reflection shots when the ocean is calm.

Calm conditions are great for reflection shots with subjects right under the surface, or for split shots and sunbeams as well. Sunbeams and surface reflections are most impactful when the water is calm, and your subject is positioned close to the surface.

Get close to your subject

As with all forms of wide-angle photography, the closer you can get to your subject, the better!

Since there is little to no ambient light in these types of scenes, it’s more important than ever to get close to your subject so that you can properly light it.

Use diffusers on your strobes

I rarely use diffusers on my strobes during the day, but at night they are particularly useful for smoothing out harsh lighting.

When there’s no ambient light to balance out the strobes, using strobes without diffusers makes them prone to hotspots.

Read more: How to Choose a Strobe for Underwater Photography

Plan in advance

Since some nighttime wide-angle shoots may focus on a single animal, like a walking shark or mantas, it’s important to go into the dive with a plan for how to find and shoot your target subject.

Visualize the composition(s) you’re looking for so that you’re ready if/when they happen!

Final tips: shoot with intention

In my opinion, one of the most important mindsets in photography is to shoot with intention. Each type of night photography requires specific tools and techniques, so setting a primary focus for your dive streamlines your preparation and increases your chances of success.

Diving with a clear objective – whether it’s fluorescence photography or macro critter portraits—helps you stay organized. Our time is already limited underwater, so it’s best to maximize it by shooting desired subjects!

While flexible setups, like flip holders for diopters and filters, can allow for on-the-fly adjustments, you’ll quickly find that constant switching between setups is time-consuming and distracting. Keep one goal in mind, and use a flexible setup only for especially rare or exceptional finds.

Flexibility is valuable, but too much back-and-forth can mean missing key moments. A clear goal provides structure while leaving room for spontaneity, so you can make the most of your dives!

In conclusion

Underwater photography at nighttime can come with challenges, but the unique photo opportunities make every effort worthwhile. Remember to dive and shoot with intention, focus on one thing at a time, and go out there and practise with each of your individual setups!

From glowing fluorescence and blackwater critters to unique nighttime reflection shots, there are many types of photos you can add to your portfolio by diving at night.

As you gain experience, experiment with different types of night photography to discover what you enjoy best. Who knows – you might end up addicted to diving in the dark like me!