Anacapa: 1st time camera setup, 2nd time photographer

[SoCalAngel]

I think Laurel may be talking about the EV not the ISO. ISO cannot be a negative number; think of it like film speed. She's spot on about practice practice practice.

Thanks Alcina... I couldn't remember the name of the thing that goes negative...

I go more negative if the ambiant light is bright and not as neg if it is dark... works for my camera...

Billy, I just went through my 200 or so pics... I think I like five of them...maybe... pics just didn't do it for me this weekend... so sad, too....

 

[Empty V]

The fish you need ID'd is a blacksmith... typical column fish in our waters.

I was thinking that's was it was but I thought they had more blue in them than green, thanks!

You forgot to subtract the 25% from the size of that lobster...prolly only about 7-8 lbs.

That one was damn big, when I catch fish I usually don't have to exaggerate the size, probably because I usually don't catch anything! ha!

One thing I do is make my ISO a neg number. I can't explain it any better, sorry... What it does is make the exposure a little under, which gives the picks more contrast. Also, for macro shots, putting it way negative makes everything black in the background. Very cool effect. Your best bet, tho, is to simply designate a few dives as practice camera dives... dont try to get great shots, just sit and take pics of the same thing, but change the settings on the camera. After a couple of dives doing that, you should have a real good feeling for how your camera takes pics.

I think my problem was that I got a little over zealous and just wanted to take awesome pics. Gotta know the hardware first. Next time I will definitely take your advice and dedicate time to perfecting just one, slow moving subject. More solo diving, yay!!!

It was great meeting you this weekend.

The pleasure was all mine, next time I'm wearing my old hockey chest protector to defend me against the upper body assaults.

Too many peeps give you much UNdeserved grief! :10:

Thanks for the sympathy, but I'm used to it. I think some people are starting to come around to excepting Billy Logic into their lives.

Billy

 

[Empty V]

composition - get the treefish at a more interesting angle, good exposure and focus though

Yeah I wasn't to stoked on the Framing and angle of that shot, it was just one of the few that had good exposure and color. I'm with ya 100%

the sculpin (a scorpionfish) is blurry, did you have macro mode on or off? check the range of the macro function in your camera documention.

I think this was the first shot I took, I think macro was off and I was rushed to get the shot off because I didn't want to miss the opportunity. The camera settings were Exposure time: 0.0020 s (1/500)
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO equiv.: 80
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: Manual

So I'm guessing my shutter was too slow and I could have opened up my lens more. Plus my ISO could have been bumped up to 200. Wow, this data really helps, so cool!

try to get a better angle on kelpfish, you really need to spend time with these guys. good job finding one though.

I saw this guy right after I saw the overexposed Abalone. He started to swim away so unfortunately my time was limited, I was pretty bummed with the composition of this one.

try to get lower on the abalone shot too, to get more of its whiskers in the shot.

This one is really frustrating. I got so excited that forgot how to take a picture. I'm guessing that my strobe position is creating way too much reflection back into the lens considering the subject is essentially white, which will reflect light better. and you're right, my angle in this shot does suck. Next time I will have a better idea of how to approach a subject like this, thanks!

the lobster is too dark, which means stronger flash, higher iso, or change the shutter speed or f-stop.

Too much to remember! I was trying to position the strobe so it would light up the cave but it didn't go as planned and I think that destroyed the exposure.

really nice kelp/fish shot (sea scape)

I dig that one too, thanks bro

let go out again together this week for some practise...

How's Wednesday night sound?

Thanks for the help

Billy

 

[Empty V]

Thanks to everyone for their input, it all helps and Leesa, we're waiting on hawaii corporate, hopefully this summer I'll be back out there for a couple of weeks. Maybe you, me and Max Brunk can dive together. I look forward to seeing you.

Billy

 

[justleesa]

sounds like a plan

 

[Mo2vation]

Can you shoot in RAW? All of your exposure, white balance and color issues go away if you can shoot in RAW. The universe of usable shots will go up by 10 times, as now the only prerequesite for keeping a shot is composition and focus.

JPEG prints your camera settings - so if your cam is not set at the optimum levels for the shot (ie: strobe strength, white balance, color levels, etc.) you're stuck with what the camera says you should have.

RAW is your digital negative... nothing is "printed" onto the image. So if its blue who cares, you can manage white balance in PS (or whatever RAW viewer you're using)... who cares if you had the cam set for "portrait" and you got muted colors instead of colors that POP (like most camera pre-sets do with Landscape)... you're not stuck with it. JPEG prints the camera's settings and you're screwed.

Does your camera have "bracket"? You can take 3 shots back to back to back with different settings before your subject knows whats happening. You can select the best, read the Exif and make mental notes for next time. Your learning curve to get you from Auto or Program to Manual (when you move from snapshots to photographs) will be dramatically shortened if you can learn the profile and personalities of your camera's shots (i.e.: your camera's sweet spots) for macro, Wide Angle, Fish portraits, diver portraits, arms-length semi-macros, etc.

Shooting in Manual and using RAW should be your objective, IMO. The faster you take the training wheels off your rig, the better you'll be able to express yourself artistically. I've seen your topside stuff... some of it is first rate. Don't handcuff yourself underwater by turning over the controls to the camera.

If its in focus and you like the composition - RAW gives you an opportunity to save the shot. If everything is perfect, but the shot is horribly over exposed in JPEG, good night now.

If you can, shoot RAW. And work on getting to full manual.

With manual you can give one picture several different personalities. Ap (DOF) controls water color, and the water is the canvas you are painting your subject on.

Remember my Garibaldi / Lime pic? Its on a turquoise canvas. Its on a mid/deep DOF. Deeper DOF gives you a lighter canvas, shorter DOF gives you a darker canvas (think: Black background Fed Ex face from a couple of weeks ago.) The canvas is what you set your subject against - blue, black, turquoise water. Or anything behind the subject (remember Fed Ex against the bright yellow hydroids from last month?) I can post some examples for you and you'll see it instantly. You just can't do this stuff in Auto.

The technical stuff is focus and whitebalance. Nearly all of the artistic expression lies in DOF, lighting and composition, IMO

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Ken

 

[Codyjp]

Ken, well said regarding composition and use of RAW. Unfortunatly the camera i am using now doesn't allow me to shoot raw (ughhh). I find that a frequent setting of the white ballance works really well though.

Good luck and practice practice practice!

btw, the last shot topside looks underexposed quite a bit, maybe the shutter speed was set to fast?

I would have to pull the efix data and it is 11;30 so that aint happenin'!

 

[Empty V]

btw, the last shot topside looks underexposed quite a bit, maybe the shutter speed was set to fast?

I stopped the lens down about a stop and a half. That was strictly for artistic reasons.

Ken thanks for the post. My camera can shoot in RAW but I still don't quite understand what that means. Is it essentially a digital neg? I shot almost every photo in manual mode. I'm not a point and shoot kind of guy, that's why I went with the e900.

Billy

P.S. thanks for the compliment on my topside B&W stuff, nothing beats real B&W film with real B&W processing

 

[Mo2vation]

Ken thanks for the post. My camera can shoot in RAW but I still don't quite understand what that means. Is it essentially a digital neg? I shot almost every photo in manual mode. I'm not a point and shoot kind of guy, that's why I went with the e900.

Billy

It takes the data directly off the CCD (or CMOS if you have a Canon...) and puts it in the file, bypassing any camera electronic interpretations - read: If your camera's White Balance settings are delivering everything very blue, you're not stuck with it. Its great for lots of things, but IMO, its most important underwater use for correcting White Balance in post.

A few clicks - literally moments, and you go from A to B. Its changed everything in the way I shoot. Although the correction is more dramatic in the Wide Angles, shooting RAW has had no less profound change on my Macros.

A..................................................................................B

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Ken

 

[Empty V]

Thanks Ken, what a huge difference in color. Are there certain steps that you take when color correcting a RAW image opposed to one that uses the image sensor's ancillary color data?

Billy