Old Cell Phones Make Great Underwater Cameras

What’s in your junk drawer?

If you have an unused smartphone tucked away, consider repurposing it as an underwater camera the next time you go snorkeling. Smartphones have good-to-excellent quality cameras, are easy to pack, and you can purchase underwater housings for most of them online.

Underwater housings are specific to each camera style because the buttons on the waterproof case must line up with the buttons on your phone to make it work. When fitting your camera into its housing, line up the camera lens on your phone with the camera lens window in the waterproof case and the rest should line up as well. Watch the following video for a quick demonstration.

Demo:

You can use your current smartphone in an underwater case just as easily, but any time a cell phone is near water you run a risk of getting it wet, however unlikely. The risk is yours to take or not. The following underwater photo was taken with a Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone in 2014, and smartphone cameras have only gotten better since then.

The photo on the left is the original, and the photo on the right has color correction and sharpening applied to it through Photoshop.

Editing Your Photos

Underwater photos don’t look right straight out of the camera because of the way that light waves are absorbed by water (unless you use a flash to compensate). Typically, editing sessions will begin with adding red back into your images since that is the first color to be filtered out, and then you can adjust the other colors until your photos look as beautiful as your memories.

This gallery highlights more edited snorkeling and scuba diving photos that were taken with the Galaxy S4 cell phone. Note that the scuba diving photo is more blue because it was taken at a greater depth and more colors have been filtered out.

Of course, better cell phone cameras will take higher quality photos. Here’s an impressive turtle shot that my daughter took while snorkeling with an iPhone 5 cell phone. The level of detail and color is very good, with the turtle in about 20 feet of water. Again, color correction and some sharpening have been applied.

Another benefit of using your cell phone as an underwater camera is that you can also capture videos. Practice with the buttons above water first to be sure you can switch back and forth between photo and video modes without confusion. Between having to look through your mask, the water, and the waterproof housing, it can be difficult to see the small icons on your cell phone screen underwater, especially if you use reading glasses.

Practice makes perfect so go snorkeling often, try different techniques, and remember to enjoy the process.

All photographs and videos are the property of Diane Thomas unless otherwise noted. They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission. Copyright 2019. Diane Thomas All Rights Reserved.