The idea of back rolling into the open ocean at night, may not be a fun idea for the uninitiated. In fact, open ocean diving at any time of the day sends chills up a diver's spine. The 360-degree environment can be intimidating to say the least, but once a diver’s skills have been mastered, exploring the open ocean is limitless.

Blackwater diving is reaching a fever pitch with underwater photographers worldwide. What started out as just a few who dared to venture into the open ocean at night, is rapidly becoming the next big thing for underwater photography. 

The Diving

Bluewater Photo returns to Crystal Blue Resort in Anilao every December for the annual winter photo workshop. This year, Bluewater Photo's Vijay Raman and Matthew Sullivan joined Crystal Blue Resort’s Mike Bartick and ~30 guests for a week of intensive underwater (mostly macro) photography: 4 dives per day, a daily image review, and a daily presentation on some sort of underwater photography discipline.

No doubt the A7RIII has been a long time coming, but the timing of the announcement seems quite on purpose with the Nikon D850 having just been announced and this camera seemingly targets the same photographers. The A7RIII seems to be a mashup of the A9 and the A7RII which makes sense. It takes the A7RII sensor but has a new processor for theoretically better image quality. Ten frames per second, in body image stabilization, reported 15 stops of dynamic range. 

If the A7RII was any indication, the RIII should be extremely popular, including with underwater photographers.