Age is just a number, and passion for the underwater world knows no bounds. At 67 years old, Filomena Sá Pinto took the Overall Champion title in the Mobile Devices category of the 2026 Portuguese Cup, part of the CMAS World Cup Underwater Photo and Video 2026. Armed with her iPhone 15 and the DIVEVOLK SeaTouch 4 Max, she placed in all four categories of the competition—Macro, Fish, Environment with Model, and Creative—showing just how far smartphone underwater photography has come.
Following Rui Bernardo's CMAS Best of Show win, Filomena's result is more evidence that DIVEVOLK users are competing—and winning—at the highest levels of mobile underwater imaging.
A Journey from Model to Award-Winning Photographer
Filomena's path into underwater photography is as compelling as her images. She began her career in front of the camera as a model, then moved behind the lens in 2005. In the two decades since, she has trained with renowned photographers and collected awards across a range of competitions.
"I started as a model and, in 2005, I became a photographer. I trained with renowned photographers, won awards in various competitions, and, at 67 years old, I maintain the same passion for diving and photography."
The Results: Four Categories, One Overall Title
The Portuguese Cup sits inside the CMAS World Cup Underwater Photo and Video programme, and its Mobile Devices competition asks photographers to deliver across four very different disciplines in a single event. Underwater photo and video is one of the sport disciplines listed by Portugal's national underwater activities federation. Filomena's scorecard, working alongside underwater model Carla Siopa:
- 1st Place — Macro (Anemone)
- 2nd Place — Fish
- 2nd Place — Environment with Model
- 3rd Place — Creative
Consistency across all four is what secured 1st Place Overall and the Mobile Devices champion title—no single lucky frame, but a portfolio that scored in every discipline.
The macro entry—a tight, symmetrical study of an anemone—took the category outright and is the strongest single result of her portfolio. Her Fish entry, a low-angle portrait of a fish resting on the sand, placed second.
Preparation: Training in Madeira
Her preparation was straightforward and disciplined. A few days before the competition she travelled to Madeira to scout the dive sites and train—time in the water on the actual terrain, before any of it counted.
The Creative Category: Improvising Under Pressure
Creative proved the hardest of the four. Filomena had planned a specific shot that needed a starfish, and on the day she simply could not find one. With the clock running, she improvised an entirely different image on the spot—the abstract, mirrored composition below—and still came away with third place in the category.
It is a useful lesson for anyone shooting a timed competition: the plan is a starting point, not a guarantee. Being able to build a new picture out of what is actually in front of you is a skill in its own right.
The Partnership: Photographer and Model
The second-place finish in Environment with Model came out of a long-running collaboration with Carla Siopa. The two have been diving together for several years, and their underwater communication has become effortless.
Carla knows exactly what Filomena likes to shoot and how to place herself in the frame, and she doubles as an assistant on macro work. That kind of shorthand matters in a competition, where time and gas are both finite.
The Gear: An iPhone in a Button-Free Housing
For her winning portfolio, Filomena shot an iPhone 15 inside a SeaTouch 4 Max. She is already planning to move to the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Unlike housings built around push-buttons, the SeaTouch 4 Max uses a button-free, full-touchscreen design. A gel membrane transmits your finger through to the phone's own screen, so every on-screen control stays available underwater—which is precisely why she can run an editing app mid-dive. Photographers building a similar rig can extend it with wet lenses and filters or dive lights depending on the subject.
The Workflow: Editing Underwater
One rule makes this competition unusual: editing has to be finished during the dive itself. There is no working on the images back on the boat.
Filomena works with two apps, DiveIt and Snapseed, and says her only real difficulty is managing the edit in such a short window underwater. Doing that at all depends on full touchscreen access—swiping, pinching and dragging sliders while neutrally buoyant. It also took practice: in her words, she had to train a lot to do what she wanted working only on the SeaTouch screen.
That experience produced a concrete request to our R&D team: a stylus or pen designed for the SeaTouch gel screen, because fine editing with a fingertip is not very practical. We have passed it along.
Advice for Photographers Starting Out
Asked what she would tell someone just starting in mobile underwater photography, her answer was about the equipment you already own:
"First, they have to adapt to the equipment. They need to know their own mobile phone well and know how to explore its potential, in terms of images and video, in order to get the most out of it."
If you are working out what your own phone can do underwater, our UWACAM app guide is a good starting point, and our support team can help with setup questions.
Filomena Sá Pinto's result at the 2026 Portuguese Cup is a reminder that gear is only part of the picture. Preparation, adaptability and two decades of practice are what put her on top of the Mobile Devices podium. We congratulate her—and Carla Siopa—on an outstanding competition.
