My first pictures with my first UW camera!

[scrubbo]

Okay, it's not ENTIRELY true... I had a cheapy disposable for a few dives several years ago, but the pictures were so so so horrible that I didn't try photos again for a good long time.

But now my Fiancee (who just got into scuba) bought me a Fuji F10 and Ikelite housing. Why? Because I'm taking her to Fiji for our honeymoon. So I'm trying to learn the tricks of the trade as I go! The good news is... having a camera that isn't a complete piece of crap and will let you see what you've just taken makes pictures about a zillion times better.

This is what I figured out how to do before the dive : Strobe set to always. Half click down to get the focus where I want it.

Wow, exciting! I know I need to learn to use the camera better, especially the white levels, and then exposure times and shutter settings. (I haven't figured out how to do shutter times... it might not be an option on the F10, but exposure and white balancing can be set to manual.)

So anyway, here are a few of my first photos, uncorrected. Feel free to comment on what I SHOULD be doing to get better photos.

This guy was big!

The most playful sea lions evah!

This is a grumpy looking eel.

OMG! A puffer! Quick, tug his tail! (I'm kidding! NO TUGGING!)

This guy didn't seem pleased to have me near his home.

 

[DandyDon]

Very nice. I'd run them thru Adobe Photoshop Starter 3.0 for free, at least.

Also, it's good to reduce the size of pics before loading them here.

 

[alibee]

Scrubbo is smoking the crack. I did run them through Photoshop -- autolevels and autocontrast. In fact, that messed up a load of his pics by turning them red, so I didn't post those online.

 

[dherbman]

Gotta love it! It's pretty cool to have the ability to show an experience in addition to telling about. Nice shots, thanks for the share!

 

[DandyDon]

Scrubbo is smoking the crack. I did run them through Photoshop -- autolevels and autocontrast. In fact, that messed up a load of his pics by turning them red, so I didn't post those online.

Yeah, it can mess them up sometimes. I always save the raw pics seperately in case I don't like what the PS did.

Sorry I am not any help - fumbling amateur here. The pics are nice tho

 

[scrubbo]

Hopefully the Digital Darkroom board and a spare weekend will help me fix them up better!

(And learning how to use the dang camera... ho ho ho!)

 

[DandyDon]

Hopefully the Digital Darkroom board and a spare weekend will help me fix them up better!

(And learning how to use the dang camera... ho ho ho!)

Well, for your firt time out with a cam, I think you did well.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Man... Those are really nice, Scrubbo. Did you have an external strobe, or just the flash on the digital camera?

 

[scrubbo]

Those were done with the internal strobe and a 'diffuser' set up on the housing. The camera was pretty much in 'point and click' mode with the strobe set to 'always'.

I credit the decent shots to the HUGE screen on the camera. It made it way easier to see how badly I'd messed up the shots and correct what I was doing as I went. There were a LOT of really bad shots to go with a handful of decent ones.

(Also, I got video of the sea lions! WOO!)

 

[alibee]

Don, don't worry, I didn't save over the raw pics. I was hoping that Scrubbo could spend some time (and maybe get some tips) to make the rest look better before I post them.