SeaLife has a new magenta colour-correcting filter for its SportDiver smartphone housing to counter the effects of taking photographs in green water. It already offers an optional red filter for the SportDiver for use in blue water.
Both filters are made of an optical acrylic that uses proprietary colour pigments, and are at their most effective at depths between 3 and 18m, according to the manufacturer.
It says that they are easy to add to or remove from the SportDiver optical lens frame while diving, and also serve as a protective cover for the glass port.
The filters can be used with or without external underwater lights, depending on shooting distance and water conditions. The new magenta version costs £21.50, including a lanyard for attaching the filter to the housing to prevent loss. The red filter costs £21.
SeaLife launched its SportDiver underwater housing for smartphones in 2020, and says that it was the first manufacturer to use its own exclusively designed smartphone app.
SeaLife cameras were introduced 30 years ago this year and the company claims a number of other notable photographic innovations including, in 2000, the first digital underwater camera; in 2007 the first non-housed digital u/w camera; and, in 2014 the first permanently and fully sealed digital u/w camera, the Micro HD.
SeaReal Dive Photo Editor
When it comes to post-production enhancement, an underwater colour-correction app called SeaReal Dive Photo Editor is now available for iPhone or iPad.
Developer Sean Scofield says his aim was to build an effective app that did not require users to pay a monthly or annual subscription fee for watermark removal. A one-off US $14.99 in-app purchase allows users to save colour-corrected media without a watermark.
SeaReal supports videos, photos and either individual or batch colour correction, and Scofield says he hopes to port it to Android as well as Mac in the near future.
The original photo/video file creation date is carried over to the colour-corrected media, and is preserved in any existing file metadata. Scofield says that no user data is collected from the 17.7MB SeaReal app, which requires iOS 15.0 or later.
Also on Divernet: 5 of the best Underwater photo-editing apps, Be The Champ! – Mastering colour, Be The Champ – leaving your strobes behind
