UK diving can present us with some unusual problems to solve photographically, the visibility and clarity can be sadly lacking, because of particles in the water, the cold can mean you have to resort to using gloves and you may have to make tricky entry and exits across piles of rocks. All of these things can be easily overcome with the careful choice of camera and accessories. Keeping your camera kit as small and manageable as possible can help hugely in getting to and from the water, and you will start your dive much less stressed. If your subject matter happens to be a wreck in gloomy light, this is an ideal scenario for you to use a wideangle/fisheye lens. You will be lots closer and still get the wreck in shot. Our colleague Dan took the Lundy Island seal shot with his camera and fisheye lens, letting him get really close and therefore making the pictures as clear as possible under the circumstances. If the light is really gloomy you can try upping your ISO settings. For even more dramatic results I often turn the results to black and white which suits this type of photography. Because of the way light is transmitted through turbid water, your photos will usually exhibit an overall greenish cast, we have tested the manual and custom white balance in these conditions and as long as you are not too deep and the conditions not too murky you can get accurate coloured results. Adding a strobe to your list of kit can open up your shooting possibilities. In little or no light they are almost essential to produce nice pictures. However, even when you have plenty of light they can help bring out those super vivid colours associated with underwater photography, especially when taking small macro subjects. Refer to the lighting section for more information on strobes. Hint: UK diving can be challenging enough without adding camera kit to the equation, so do yourself a favour, go wide and keep it simple and practice your techniques above the water as often as you can.

These seal pictures were taken with an SLR at Lundy Island