Brac photos

[lisa_j]

Hi everyone!
I posted my trip report with photos in the Cayman forum, but I wanted to get some feedback on our pics from all you pros. We have a Canon A610 with a single DS125 strobe. Although we've taken pics with this before, these are our first 'real' pictures with the setup where Jeff knew what he was doing!

There are also some pics thrown in that I took with our A60 (no strobe).

I look forward to any comments and critiques!

http://photos.fishoutercape.com/gallery/Cayman-Brac-Diving

Lisa

Note: If you're interested in the camera settings for each pic you can click 'photo properties' in the top right.

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

I'm definitely not a pro, but my suggestions would be the following:

1. Get closer to your subject to allow for more lighting from your strobe. Some of the photos are somewhat bland and would have been much better with more lighting

2. A lot of the photos look like you tend to shoot down on your subject. If you can get low and shoot up at the subject you'll get better separation and the subject will stand out better. When you shoot down you often lose the contrast between subject and background.

3. Fish photos are more esthetically pleasing with the fish looking at the camera at a slight angle, say 30 degrees. We all have our "tail shots" which document the fish was there but aren't our best artistic work.

Just my 2 cents from one amateur to another.

Keep shooting! Looking forward to seeing more of your photos in the future.

Doug

 

[Wolverine]

Just a few ideas from my own amatuer experience:

(a) Get within 3 feet. That is the distance where the strobe works best. Once the subject is out of this range, there will be some colour loss. Every feet represents 1 f-stop in exposure. So the further you are from the subject, the more light you need to get colour.
(b) Try to frame shots looking at or up, rather than down. Debersole is right in that a picture is more pleasing when there is negative space (eg water, or unfocused background). Increasing the shutter speed can also help darken background to create negative space. This works particularly well coral actually.
(c) Fish shots are the toughest. I usually get the tail shot. Idea is to approach at an angle ( or better, parallel) rather than direct. You are less likely to scare it off. Also approach from below to get a better angle on the shot wrt to negative space and framing. I admit I am not good at fish shots. Its really tough to get close the fish without scaring them off.

Other than that, only thing I can add is to practice, practice and practice.

 

[lisa_j]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! We'll have to try them out and post pics after our next trip!