Less Gear, Better Images in 2026

Alex Mustard discusses some concepts for underwater-photography-related New Year resolutions

Photographs by Alex Mustard

A New Year, A New Underwater Photographer

It’s the beginning of 2026, and it’s time to contemplate the leaves we ought to be turning over to enhance ourselves as photographers. The enjoyable place to begin is exercising our bank card. Fortunately, there are at all times thrilling new merchandise on the earth of underwater pictures that may remodel the kinds of pictures we take. Underwater taking pictures is a technically difficult department of image-making -and that implies that the very best gear improvements actually do increase our horizons.

Mirrorless Cameras: Evolution, Not Obligation

First up it’s cameras. The large photographic information of the previous few years has been mirrorless cameras coming of age. That doesn’t imply it’s a must to get one, as a result of older cameras didn’t all of the sudden cease working (regardless of what Nikon, Canon and Sony would have you ever consider). But it is usually lifelike to conclude that if you’re not presently taking pictures mirrorless that your subsequent digicam will probably be mirrorless, and issues like lens purchases ought to be deliberate accordingly.

Mirrorless cameras carry some important technical advances over SLRs, however not all of those translate underwater. So do your analysis – an excellent place to begin is that this column from precisely a yr in the past, the place we made a deep dive into the subject.

Where Image Quality Is Really Won or Lost

The large advances in underwater photographic gear within the final ten years haven’t been cameras, however in underwater optics and underwater strobes. And for us, these each have a a lot greater potential for reworking the standard of pictures we will produce. If you might be on the lookout for rewarding decision for 2026, investing in these areas is a great transfer.

The bottleneck for underwater picture high quality has at all times been the air/water boundary. Our cameras have to be in air (inside our housing) whereas the topic is within the water. So sooner or later the sunshine should cross between these two mediums and this boundary causes all the issues. Of course, it’s straightforward for a digicam to see underwater, simply as it’s straightforward for us to see by a facemask, however as quickly because it tries to see away from straight forward the picture high quality drops considerably. Next time you might be on a dive, attempt purposely particulars within the reef by the nook of your masks and you’ll admire the issue.

These optical issues have at all times been recognized, however the answer required the mixture of the extremely complicated arithmetic and specialist optical merchandise, and with so few individuals desirous about underwater imaging, value stopped anybody fixing the issue. That was till slightly over ten years in the past when Nauticam led the way in which, pointing highly effective optical design software program on the problem, which may now be run on dwelling laptop. Numbers have been crunched and specialist underwater optics have been constructed that squashed the optical gremlins. These days we’ve by no means had it so good and there’s a complete vary of lenses that may create footage with edge-to-edge high quality that earlier generations by no means dreamed of, and specialist optics that make beforehand unattainable pictures fully mainstream.

The Quiet Revolution in Underwater Lighting

More lately, we’ve seen a revolution in underwater lighting. LED torches at the moment are simply highly effective sufficient to be photographically helpful and small ones are usually exploited for artistic macro pictures, whereas giant ones can be utilized as off-camera gentle sources in large angle pictures, notably in darker environments. More importantly, the final couple of years has seen a proliferation in underwater flashes or strobes. Five years in the past nearly everybody was utilizing simply a few well-established manufacturers. Now there are many new names available on the market who revolutionised what we will gentle with high-performance merchandise. Not solely that, however some strobe producers, like Retra, have realised that much more essential than the spec sheet is the standard of sunshine and prioritised this of their designs. It is like having golden hour in your pocket, as lastly strobe manufactures have realised that photographers don’t wish to simply shoot within the brightest noon tropical solar, however the most-attractive pictures are available in stunning gentle.

All that stated, whereas retail remedy is perhaps the best photographic decision, nearly each underwater shooter will remodel their outcomes way more by engaged on their sport, not their gear.

Why Better Diving Makes Better Photos

Humble diving abilities are too continuously ignored by snappers as a route to raised images, which is an enormous mistake. Most photographers, as soon as they’ve executed a number of hundred dives, conclude they know what they should. The greatest decision I can suggest is to keep away from pondering you’ve ‘learned diving’ and to undertake the angle that all of us, at all times, can continue to learn.

New Year Resolutions: Escaping the Creative Rut

Probably the most important frustration I hear from photographers is that feeling of being caught in a rut creatively. Your footage frequently enhance, however you end up at all times taking pictures the identical topics in the identical approach. Breaking this cycle is hard and I consider it takes a deep-seated decision that goes to coronary heart of our relationship with pictures.

None of us will get to dive and shoot as a lot as we’d like, and it’s pure to repeatedly return to the identical tried-and-tested strategies if you wish to get as many good photographs as attainable. But I problem you to query if that is the very best route. Nobody needs to see 3,000 images out of your final Red Sea week, maybe your time can be higher positioned engaged on a couple of particular photographs. What an viewers love is seeing a simply handful of critically gorgeous footage. The greatest begin is to make your purpose the enjoyment of taking images underwater, quite than the enjoyment of getting good photographs (and even successful a contest). This offers you permission to play, to experiment and frees you out of your interest being results-driven. Any dive the place you benefit from the artistic strategy of working with a digicam is what actually issues. And over time this may see you creating recent imagery and most significantly actually memorable footage.

Measure Success by Enjoyment, Not Output

There are a lot of methods to revolutionise your underwater pictures in 2026: new gear, new locations, new topics… But above all, I’d encourage you to ditch worry of failure, and to not measure success by what number of good photographs you will get on a dive, however on whether or not you loved the method. Experiment and play with concepts and extra possible than not you’ll produce kinds of pictures you by no means have earlier than. And having simply completed judging UPY 2026, I can guarantee you that the winners circle is dominated by such artistic pondering, not photographers taking excellent variations of the photographs they’ve earlier than. 

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