- What's up guys and welcome
to the biggest island in the Coral Sea.
(vibrant music)
We are in the middle of the ocean
in-between Australia and New Caledonia.
And this land mass, what we are currently standing on
is the biggest island, it's pretty tiny.
What I thought is, since we've been living
on a boat for the last two weeks
and we've got another two weeks out here,
I wanted to share with you my tips
for shooting underwater photos with (voila) a GoPro
Also, all the music that you hear in today's video
is from the amazing team at Epidemic Sound.
Huge shout, and thank you to them.
Today's video is sponsored by them
more on that later in the video.
But first let's get stuck into the tips.
(upbeat music)
- Now, one of the most frequently asked questions I get
is in regards to the housing
and to knock that one over straight away,
my answer is "yes"
You've probably seen the housing
in that dual mount that I was holding before.
Now, you only need that
if you're gonna be taking photos
like deeper than 10 meters.
So if you're actually scuba diving
then you have to use that
because the camera's not gonna function very well,
if not at all,
without that underwater housing.
Those things are about 100 bucks.
You can pick them up on the GoPro website
link in the description,
but you can just shoot
if you're shooting a water like this
which is two, like three to five meters
or anything shorter than 10 meters in depth,
you can just use the camera itself.
I highly recommend for those of you that
are shooting without a dive case,
is that you get into a sound habit
of rinsing and cleaning your GoPro
after each time you shoot in salty water
because the salty water will start to corrode the prongs
and it will affect the camera in the long run.
So if you wanna preserve the camera
make sure you give it a good,
nice fresh water ran after you've shot with it.
But yeah I love taking photos
so let's dump into the blue
and let's go and get some photos.
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It's kind of wild to think that places like this exist
where not that many people get to...
- Set foot on.
- Yeah set foot on come to explore experience.
Well one because it's extremely difficult to get here.
You have to have a vessel that is big enough
to cross a channel,
but small enough to fit into a lagoon.
- So it can't be a monohull
For example you can't get here with a monohull
- [Jake] No
- [Lady] That's ruled out.
- [Jake] Exactly. So you need to have a catamaran
with a very short hull I think they call it.
- [Lady] Yeah.
- [Jake] And...
- [Lady] You also need to sail for four days.
- [Jake] Yeah.
- Did we mention that?
We've been sailing for four days.
- This probably looks amazing, but we haven't shared
any of the content of us, like being in a cabin
and doing night watches for the
three nonstop days of sailing
it took us to get here three nonstop days.
That's like 72 hours of being in a very confined space,
waking up and doing like four hour shifts each
to make sure that the boat was
on the right track and that...
- It's not hitting anything.
I think that's one of the main concern with...
thanks for the commentary (signals bird)
(both chuckle)
for doing night watch and whatnot.
You want to make sure you're not running into anything.
You know there might be loose containers.
There might be some coral (chuckles)
You have to be careful of what's out there.
But it's crazy because we haven't seen anything.
We've been crossing the open ocean for three days now
and we haven't seen dolphins,
we haven't seen whales,
I mean it's just nothing
it's just water it's love.
- And also fun fact Cato is also home to the sea snake.
One of the most poisonous snakes in the world
if not the most poisonous snake.
Supposedly if you get bitten by a sea snake
- [Lady] you're done.
- [Jake] You pretty much die instantly.
- [Lady] You're done.
- And interestingly they're very well frequented.
So there's a good chance we will probably
swim with sea snakes
because they're very curious,
but they're not always aggressive
(both laugh)
- No laugh
- So (chuckles) we'll see
we'll see if we can catch one on the GoPro.
(upbeat music)
- One of our favorite accessories
when talking about GoPro photography
especially underwater is the dome.
That's right.
There's a couple on the internet couple different types.
They're all working in the same way
where you have this concave sort of lens
that's in front it's plastic,
and you are essentially getting a bigger
surface area to take your photo
allowing you to get that 50/50 split effect
which is 50% under water 50% over water.
The important point though when shooting dome
it is most successful
When you have a subject
that's both on top of the water and under the water.
In that case, Jake, what are we gonna use?
- Well today you can either use something
like a paddleboard or in our case,
we have this massive catamaran behind us
which is gonna look awesome.
Other tips that we would encourage you
to explore is also action shots
you might have someone jumping off the catamaran
or doing something cool underwater.
It's really up to your creativity.
You can just explore what you wanna do
with both parts of the frame.
And what has often worked best is like a 70/30 split.
So making sure the dome isn't exactly 50/50
I guess perpendicular with the surface level
because there is water magnification.
So you could have it just tilt either forward or backwards.
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- So one of the most frequently asked questions that I get
and I always listed in the description
of my YouTube videos is where I find music for these videos.
So whether it's a tutorial
whether it's a vlog or a travel film,
I find pretty much all of my music from Epidemic Sound.
Now, the awesome thing with epidemic sound
is that all the music that you use from their library
if you're signed up as a member is royalty free
which means you will not get copyright strikes
on your videos.
You can use these songs that you download
from Epidemic Sound on your Instagram on your Facebook,
pretty much on all of your social media
and you won't get copyright claims on those videos.
Now, I think it's super important
for those of that are interested
in monetizing your YouTube videos to use royalty-free music.
One of the coolest features that Epidemic Sound has
which is very different
to other music licensing sites is the fact
that they curate music
for you based on your YouTube channel.
So if you connect your YouTube channel,
it will crawl through and have a listen
to the songs that you previously used in your videos
and curate content and curate a track list
that will show up
as soon as you log to their service to their website.
And it's super cool
'cause it's literally where I go to very first
when I'm looking for a song for my YouTube channel.
Now some of my favorite artists that I frequently
listen to are Ooyy O-O-Y-Y
He's one of my favorite artists there.
Cosbe C-O-S-B-E I'll put a playlist
of my favorite songs in the top link of the description
and they also offer a 30-day free trial
jump down there in the links
and get some awesome tracks for your videos today.
(upbeat music)
Look at this weather.
That's what I call freaking amazing opportunity
to shoot incredible photos.
One of the first things that we're gonna do today
is we're gonna work with this thing.
Which is the light the natural light
as you can see,
like right now,
this glistening section of the sun
is gonna create some amazing light rays
which pierce through the ocean.
Which is your cue to get in the water
and start playing around with it.
I highly recommend shooting underwater photos,
sunrise and sunset.
And the other thing which also looks incredible
is water clarity or visibility.
These are all things which are paramount
to capturing incredible photos.
Look at the visibility that we have right here.
That's insane.
Like you can see the ocean floor.
(upbeat music)
So something we bring on every adventure
and an easy way to improve your underwater photos
is to do a site inspection
a little wrecky with a mask.
Before we shoot our photos,
We like to just jump in
before we even have the camera
and check out the underwater environment,
check out the contours,
the landscapes,
the coral structures,
and think like what would that image look like
if we were to put ourselves here
contrasted with the white sand,
as opposed to being on top of the coral
or in this nice little watery section
next to this beautiful bank of coral.
So something simple,
but we'll always improve your GoPro photos on the water.
(upbeat music)
- Pro tip definitely invest in a good mask.
They can be expensive
but having a mask that you feel comfortable in
and that is your own is an absolute must have
for any diver and photographer out there.
Mine is a single lens,
Jake opted for a dual lens option
really depends on the style you want to go with.
- Yeah.
- Mine also have windows on the side
so I actually have more visibility.
Make sure you try on a mask before you buy it,
I don't recommend buying them on the internet
'cause you wanna make sure they fit your face structure so..
- Yeah you wanna be comfy,
you wanna be able to be in the water
for as long as possible
to keep shooting and getting those shots.
All right, let's get down there
and let's take some bangers.
(soft music)
When we first start shooting underwater photos,
I think it's really important to understand
what settings you are using
so that you can maximize
the content that you capture underwater.
I love to set the camera up if I'm just capturing JPEGs
'cause I want to edit the photos for social media
after the trip,
then I just like to shoot in burst.
But I also just like the output to be standard
which means I'm just getting a JPEG as my output.
However for those of you that love editing
and you want to take your photos to that next level,
I recommend shooting in raw plus JPEG as your output
you'll receive these .gpr files
and what you can do with them
once you edit your photos is unbelievable.
But to do that,
you just have to go into your camera settings
and make sure you set your output to JPEG plus Raw.
And you also wanna be shooting
either bursts of 10 over three,
or 10 over one
depending on how fast the action is.
The reason why we love to shoot bursts
is because I personally,
when I first started diving and taking underwater photos,
couldn't hold my breath very long.
Which means I could maximize what was going on underwater
for only spending a little bit of time down there
(soft music)
Guys thank you so much for checking out today's video.
I hope you've enjoyed exploring Cato Island
this beautiful remote spot in this Coral Sea.
If you have enjoyed the video,
punch that thumbs up button.
And if you wanna learn more,
be sure to click the card up here
or on the end screen there's another card
you can check out more videos linked on my channel.
If you want to take your GoPro photography even further
or there's things that I haven't explained,
then check out our masterclass.
We have a whole masterclass which shares everything
from zero to hero,
improving your photography
and filmmaking with this little camera right here.
Thank you for sharing the stock
and I'll see you guys in the next video (mimics farewell)
(upbeat music)