Master Underwater Video: The RAID Action Camera Course with Jeff Goodman (Part 5 of 9)

Published 3 weeks agoon June 19, 2026

Over the coming weeks, Jeff Goodman shares in part some key sections from his RAID Action Camera Video Course. Jeff has selected 9 extracts from the Underwater Video Course which will be published here at Scubaverse.com.

Part 5: Filming Other Divers with Lights

An easy way to hide or minimise any lighting difficulties you may have is to do a few shots of a diver holding a torch or light. Have them looking around with the light, swimming over the seabed, through kelp, looking into a wreck. Do this in wide angle as well as mid shots. (We discuss this later under editing.) Also do a few close-ups of the diver’s face and perhaps the light in their hand. This way, if your lighting of other subjects is a bit unsteady, you can always edit in a few shots of the diver and the audience will assume the light is from them. This is known as a point of view (POV) shot. It is always preferable to get lighting right in the first place, but underwater filming, especially with wildlife, is not fully controllable. You may be fighting a current or finning hard to keep up with your subject. In these circumstances, it is hard to keep a light or camera steady. So a ‘diver with light’ cutaway will prove invaluable.

Divers with lights also add interest to a scene. In the two images below, a close-up of the striped catfish is nice enough, but if you add a wide shot of a diver with a torch looking at them, then you are starting to create a story rather than just take wildlife snapshots.

Next Time: Nighttime filming

Find the full course at diveraid.com/action-camera.

Jeff Goodman

Jeff is a multiple award winning, freelance TV cameraman/film maker and author. Having made both terrestrial and marine films, it is the world's oceans and their conservation that hold his passion with over 10.000 dives in his career. Having filmed for international television companies around the world and author of two books on underwater filming, Jeff is Author/Programme Specialist for the 'Underwater Action Camera' course for the RAID training agency. Jeff has experienced the rapid advances in technology for diving as well as camera equipment and has also experienced much of our planet’s marine life, witnessing, first hand, many of the changes that have occurred to the wildlife and environment during that time. Jeff runs bespoke underwater video and editing workshops for the complete beginner up to the budding professional.