Need your advice to me, Newbie to DSLR

[Jfish]

Jfish, Ah nice macro shots in your album! Cute baby squid! Are you using a 60mm macro lens? I don't know what settings you are using on your Nikon, but on my Canon I find I get better focused photos when I choose the center focus pt. so the camera doesn't pick the wrong subject to focus on or if you want to focus on a fish's eyes rather than it's butt

Don't worry, I find wide angle frustrating as well and continue to miss on my sunball shots!!! Some tips I've gotten (which I hopefully will get to use next time!). Instead of just shooting open water directly at the sun, try to get a subject in the picture to block or partially block the sun (maybe a diver, a bangka, etc...) for a silhouette shot. Or try to put the sun to corner or edge...

Also, are you shooting in RAW? You might want to play with the white balance in RAW to remove some of that cyan cast on the foreground of the barrel sponge photo.

Pakman,

Really appreciate your sharing. I saw your Cabilao pictures. real nice.

You're right, I'm using 60mm for macro and then 12-24 for WA. I also used center focus but when I shoot small stuff like triplefins, I really feel difficult to focus, and this was my first time to use viewfinder, you know I had crossed eyes in the first few dives.. @_@

Will take your advice on WA and will try out next time. sigh.. at least 3 months later
Will you fire your strobe to shoot sunburst?

I am shooting in JPEG.

 

[pakman]

Jfish - With your D80, you should really be taking advantage of shooting in RAW. It really gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of correcting white balance and other post processing than shooting directly to jpg. Not sure if any of the professional u/w photographers in HK do workshops, but it really helped me to attend one (I went to one run by Mike Veitch). Or even try to pick up a book on general digital photography.

As for shooting sunburst, only time you would want to use your strobe is if you want to light up a subject in front (say a close diver, fish, reef etc).

And yes, hahaa... I know that exact feeling of having cross eyes after spending your first day diving with a DSLR!