Looking for Help Improving My Photos

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A lot of good advice so far. It can be very hard when you're starting out to keep all the variables in your head. If there's only one thing to try and remember, it's - Get Close. Looking at your photos from Dutch, I can see that the strobe did not "hit" at all. Your strobe is your main source of color - of anything not looking just green. You should shoot in RAW and learn some editing, but even that can only go so far. So before you worry too much about strobe positioning, think about how your strobe is working.

On land, in a dark room, make sure the strobe is firing correctly. Then, see how close you can get to a test subject while still being able to focus. This should be about 3.5", according to the SeaLife website. Then, move back 6" at a time and see what happens to the light. Underwater, you can only count on strobes working well up until about 3' away. Once you're more than 5-6' away, the strobe is doing very little.

So, keeping this in mind, think about - do I want to light this wide-angle scene with the strobe? How much can I get in the frame if I'm 3-4' away? If that's not going to work for you, you can focus on using only ambient light, try experimenting with Black & White, or buy a wide-angle wet lens. A wide-angle wet lens screws onto the front of the DC2000 and allows you to stay close enough for the strobes to work, but lets more of the scene into the camera. You'll often see people choose Black & White for very wide angle scenes because there's no chance of lighting them with normal strobes anyway, and rendering to Black & White can bring out more detail.

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I started diving about 2 years ago. I thought I knew how to take a good photo on land. Completely different under water. Here's the best advice people have given me:
--Light. You can never have enough. Ideally 2 strobes (I can only afford to have one). I also have two side lights
--Better divers take better pictures. You have to not move. Control your breathing. I'll inhale, steady myself and exhale. Think about breath when you shoot because movement is bad for pictures
--Get Lightroom (or some other high end photo software). EVERY photographer edits their pictures. At first I thought "what am I doing wrong", but then I learned they all edit them. Your pictures are green. No worries. Lightroom can take the green out.. NEVER think that even the best photographers are getting those shots without an editor. Yes, they are very good shots, but they make them excellent by editing them.
--Get CLOSE to the subject. With bad viz nothing will look great, but if you get close to a fish or structure and provide lighting it'll look good.
--Lastly, play around with the settings. Most ISO are 100 or 200 and sometimes auto settings shoot it higher. Practice on land in a dark room or at dusk so you can see what the settings do. From there apply under water.

That's the best advice given to me. I was SO frustrated at first. But I read a lot and asked advice and just kept at all. I don't have award winning shots, but I'm happy with them and they are only for myself and a few friends I show. And all photographers will tell you they shoot hundreds of photos and maybe get a few they are truly happy with and maybe one or two epic shots out of the hundreds. I could shoot 300 photos on a dive and keep 25 and may only think 1 or 2 are awesome.
And no, my photos did not look like this before I edited them. Here are some nudibranchs from the cold waters of New England. Epic, no? Am I happy, yes. And that's all that matters. I have decent photos for memories.

GOOD LUCK!! You'll get better with every dive!! PROMISE!

This is a great response, thank you!
 
A lot of good advice so far. It can be very hard when you're starting out to keep all the variables in your head. If there's only one thing to try and remember, it's - Get Close. Looking at your photos from Dutch, I can see that the strobe did not "hit" at all. Your strobe is your main source of color - of anything not looking just green. You should shoot in RAW and learn some editing, but even that can only go so far. So before you worry too much about strobe positioning, think about how your strobe is working.

On land, in a dark room, make sure the strobe is firing correctly. Then, see how close you can get to a test subject while still being able to focus. This should be about 3.5", according to the SeaLife website. Then, move back 6" at a time and see what happens to the light. Underwater, you can only count on strobes working well up until about 3' away. Once you're more than 5-6' away, the strobe is doing very little.

So, keeping this in mind, think about - do I want to light this wide-angle scene with the strobe? How much can I get in the frame if I'm 3-4' away? If that's not going to work for you, you can focus on using only ambient light, try experimenting with Black & White, or buy a wide-angle wet lens. A wide-angle wet lens screws onto the front of the DC2000 and allows you to stay close enough for the strobes to work, but lets more of the scene into the camera. You'll often see people choose Black & White for very wide angle scenes because there's no chance of lighting them with normal strobes anyway, and rendering to Black & White can bring out more detail.

View attachment 520779

Thanks for the feedback. I actually DID buy a wide angle lens on a lark but have yet to use it. I'm going to try it out soon.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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