Photography Thread Revival

[Kimela]

I have a flashlight attached by a lanyard to my left shoulder D-ring; during the dive, I swim around with the camera rig in my right hand, and flashlight in the left, scanning the water around me with the beam. The camera is set up with two strobes, one on each side of the lens, pointing forward and inward, plus a focus light on top, pointing forward and down. When the beam highlights something interesting, I get closer, bring the camera in front so that the subject is illuminated by the focus light, drop the search flashlight so that it dangles on its lanyard, and use both hands to get the subject in the frame and in focus, which is more difficult than it sounds. My lens of choice for this is Canon EF-S 60mm macro on a Metabones IV adapter. Some subjects ignore the light, some are scared by it - in that case, switching to red mode on the focus light sometimes helps, although it makes framing even harder - and others are attracted to lights, in which case it helps to turn off the focus light and use the modeling lights on strobes for focusing; this way you don't end up frantically backpedaling away from a critter that's trying to bump into your focus light.

Some more blackwater pics.

Filefish eating a jellyfish
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Swimming crab
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Squid
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Radiolarian colony
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Jellyfish
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Salp chainView attachment 756429
Juvenile black pomfret
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Some kind of filefish, I think
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Juvenile trevally
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I just found out though that a work project getting rescheduled will cause me to miss a dedicated blackwater liveaboard trip this January which I signed up for way back in May

I LOVE these! Sorry to hear about your work conflict.

 

[Kimela]

Here are a couple more - the first one is of something I can't identify but now wonder if it might be some sort of 'colony' (not great focus, but it was an 'experimental' shot)? The second is a banded shrimp eating a jelly - with an arrow crab for company.

EDIT: Came back to add my splendid toad fish because I'd never gotten that angle before.

 

[Guitarcrazy]

Great shots. I like to get shots of Arrow crabs because they are so cool, and so abundant that they are never hard to find. It is tough to get great focus on them since their snout(?) sticks out so far from their eyes. I don't think I noticed an arrow crab my first few dives and then after somebody pointed one out on a dive, I can hardly dive without seeing them. Nice work.

 

[Jonnyola87]

Here are a couple more - the first one is of something I can't identify but now wonder if it might be some sort of 'colony' (not great focus, but it was an 'experimental' shot)? The second is a banded shrimp eating a jelly - with an arrow crab for company.

View attachment 756441View attachment 756442

That shot of the arrow crab and the banded shrimp mirroring each other is incredible. With the jelly between them.

 

[Jonnyola87]

Do most of you all use Lightroom for post? All in all, how aggressively are you processing these?

 

[arew+4]

Top is minor lighting adjustment using native phone software, bottom is original. That's usually about the extent of minorities from me. The big guy just would not let me get any closer. So the flash is blued out and there is to much floaters. This is in the sand at the Hooker on Bonaire, he is under the mast.

Topside, flower by the trash bin on Bonaire.

 

[BoltSnap]

Photos from My Trip to Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt with my 10 year old OLY EM5 in Nauticam Housing (March 16 - 19, 2022)​

These pictures were taken when I was in Sharm El-Sheikh for the "Arab Championship for Underwater Photography." I represented Libya in this competition.

My equipment included the 10 year old OLY EM5 in Nauticam housing , 2 X S&S YS-D1 (with dual-electronic sync cord) and the OLY 12-50mm and the 60mm lens. I used the 60mm lens in only one dive out of seven dives.


(The original thread where I posted a report about this trip with more pictures is here: Photos from My Trip to Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt with my 10 year old OLY EM5 in Nauticam Housing (March 16 - 19, 2022))

 

[Guitarcrazy]

I do use Lightroom in post on all. I shoot in Raw, and then try to correct my poor technique in Lightroom. I generally adjust white balance slightly, which also requires a tint adjustment. After that I generally crop and that is about it. Sometimes I'll do other edits, but that is the majority of the edits. I watched a video where Brent Durand recommended trying the Auto feature on Lightroom which uses their AI to edit. Sometimes it works great. Other times, not so much. YMMV.

 

[Kimela]

Do most of you all use Lightroom for post? All in all, how aggressively are you processing these?

I don't use lightroom. I have it on my computer and keep paying for it, but every time I think about learning how to use it I get bored. So I use whatever my ipad offers. Maybe someday I'll learn how to use the other stuff - I think I have some good turtle and ray pics that would benefit from color correction.

 

[Jonnyola87]

I do use Lightroom in post on all. I shoot in Raw, and then try to correct my poor technique in Lightroom. I generally adjust white balance slightly, which also requires a tint adjustment. After that I generally crop and that is about it. Sometimes I'll do other edits, but that is the majority of the edits. I watched a video where Brent Durand recommended trying the Auto feature on Lightroom which uses their AI to edit. Sometimes it works great. Other times, not so much. YMMV.

I don't use lightroom. I have it on my computer and keep paying for it, but every time I think about learning how to use it I get bored. So I use whatever my ipad offers. Maybe someday I'll learn how to use the other stuff - I think I have some good turtle and ray pics that would benefit from color correction.

I've been trying to get used to it, also using an auto color correct which does OK for underwater, but not great. I suppose I should learn LR in more depth. Apple Photos editing was OK for me in the beginning but it crashes whenever I try to edit.