critique please

[cdiver2]

seems to be more like what you described ?

 

[Dee]

The damsel is now part of the backgound, providing a spot of color. It's hard for you to control but the silversides blurred across the top is distracting to me. The split/openig in the reef draws my attention. Why...there's nothing there really.

What about if it was cropped a bit? Shift the whole focal point just a tad and get rid of some of the dull busy-ness of the reef.

 

[James connell]

cdiver2 once bubbled...
James what I had forgoten was that I had the asa set at 100 = -1 stop there ( I do this a lot but I just forgot about it on this shot ) I have just purchased a seconde strobe ys30 duo to use in the slave mode, Do you think if I had put a diver above the subject aiming the strobe down and towards the rear fo the fish the results would have been any better ?.

well 1 stop on slide film is a mile!!

personaly i think you should have had the camera setup for ambient light ( or close to it) and just used a little fill for the highlites ( ah, the joys of 20/20 hindsite)

a second strobe set to the lower far left to illuminate the jewfish without blasting the silversides would have evened it out a little. i also would have moved the camera left and down - i understand this wasn't really a planned shot!
i like the school of feed fish and the "bucket" coming up into them. I'v been tring to get a shot like that for years now! in puget sound there's a marine park that is one of the oldest 9 if not the oldest) protected area in the sound - NO harvest at all for a very long time. it has ling cod that are full grown (~ 60lbs). there's a sunken drydock at about 30ft depth trhat has a bunch of these critters on it and a lot of schools a small fish around it. it's a wonderfull sight to see ( in great vis) one of the lings loop up from the bottom though one of these schools mouth open like a 10 gal bucket and leave a hole in the school! problem is, vis at the site is only > 20 ft maybe 2 times a year, the rest of the time it sucks! i'v been there 5 times in the last 10 years when vis was 60+ and just never got the shot :upset:

as for focus of your pix - it looks out off focus ( might simply be the under exposure) - but it shouldn't be! if the 20mm lens was anywhere close to 4 ft with the depth of field of that lens @ f11 you're good from ~2' to around 8'.

 

[cdiver2]

James I dived Northern Ireland a lot in the 70-80s and we had ling there and I just can not imagine them with bucket mouths.
The ones I saw were about 4-5ft long,very slim, nearly white with a couple of small barbals under the mouth, very shy fish never saw them in the open always under a wreck and you would only get a glimps of them. Anything like your ling ?.
When I can dive again Im going to give it a go on the Goliath again and try it as you described.

 

[cdiver2]

I think croped more looks better what do you think ?

 

[James connell]

The lings in the north pacific are different (at least in apperance) 5-6 ft , they are thin bodied - a 5 fter is only about 15 maybe 18" across the body and rather "torpedo" looking with a mouth full of pretty impressive teeth. when they realy open up it gets bigger than the body. a good 2' across! they aren't white either, the females are a mottled lite/medium tan to medium gray/green, the males are smaller ( ~2' ) and turn black in the breading season - the males guard the eggs, which looks like an irregular block of styrofoam, very aggressivly ( i'v been bitten by a few when i got to close and didn't see them) one of the reasons they're so rare any more they come to you to be shot! at this site (Edmonds,Wa.) the fish have been protedted so long you can ease to within inches of most of them - they have no natural predaturs in that shallow of water. the big cabazons are that tame too - kinda looks like a swimming gargyol!

cdiver2 once bubbled...
James I dived Northern Ireland a lot in the 70-80s and we had ling there and I just can not imagine them with bucket mouths.
The ones I saw were about 4-5ft long,very slim, nearly white with a couple of small barbals under the mouth, very shy fish never saw them in the open always under a wreck and you would only get a glimps of them. Anything like your ling ?.
When I can dive again Im going to give it a go on the Goliath again and try it as you described.

 

[Dee]

I think I like mine better! :mean: See all the muddled brown of the corals behind the damsel? It's boring and it all overwhelms the damsel. With the bright orange coral directly behind her (?) she's sort of lost form anyway. And it's sort of flat looking.

I was trying to get rid of most of it because it's just boring. By leaving in the split in the corals with the hydroids waving into the center from both sides, you get a feeling of movement and a placement for the damsel.

'Course, this is just my 2¢!

 

[cdiver2]

I see what you mean after going between the two croped ones a few times and have to agree with you, It seems its found a place in the center from the original to my crop. Thanks for advice will post a new pic tomorrow on new thread PLEASE jump in and say what you feel
All the best
David