Pics from amateur

[bmouth]

Hi all my first day on this forum... I went on Discover Scuba twice and am now addicted to it... I am looking for places to get certified and I stumbled onto this great site... On my second dive I went with my family and my dad has an Olympus C4040Z with a housing and took some pictures... I don't understand why the color and white balance are way off... any feedback would be nice...

anyways here you go:

 

[bmouth]

This one is one of my better ones, I like the composite, but oh man, can someone help me correct the color and white balance:

And this is me!!

 

[bmouth]

And a creature here with no brains... I really find it amusing that starfish has no brians!!

 

[buff]

I am guessing that you didn't have a strobe on your camera?

Using the cameras default flash can work in good visibility water to about 10 feet-maybe.

It's all about the light.

On those Jaques Cousteau shows when some poor sap carrying 800 pounds of light aims it at the reef, the whole reef lights up and the colors are incredible. You can't have enough light-almost.

It's about compostition too. Shooting down on your subject makes them look small. Shooting up and getting close(the real secret) makes them look big. Try and fill the whole composition with your subject-creates drama. Otherwise your shots will look like a scienfitic collection.

 

[buff]

The clownfish one is very good.

You got close. The fish is facing you. The fish is in the anemones-interesting surrounding. Lighting is adequate-could be more.

Shot from underneath and closer this would have been an excellent shot.

You need about 1,000 bucks worth of strobes. The camera that you have is very good and it's digital so you can just "shoot away".

U/W photography is one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I throw away 90% of my photos and I really work at having everything just right for the shot.

If I would have known how hard it is I probably wouldn't have gotten into it. But it's too late-I'm hooked!

 

[marpacifica]

To take consistently better shots, yes, you do need some expensive strobes. But one of the best shots I've taken was with the internal strobe, macro mode, and within 8 inches of the subject. The internal strobe is good to about a foot for deep, saturated color. Beyond that you start getting the green and blue shifts, and lose yellows and reds. I don't know about the white balance settings of the 4040, but try fooling around with those underwater to see if the colors are any better. And get within a foot, using macro -- you'll see immediate difference in the color without fooling with white balance. There are tips on this site about fooling the macro (zoom all the way in macro, then do four short taps to zoom out, followed by moving the camera for focus). If you think you're close enough, you're not close enough....

 

[Dee]

Actually the default white balance setting on all the Oly cameras seem to work the best. I've set the WB at depth and couldn't see that much difference.

It's not you WB that's off, you need to be using the internal flash, if not an external strobe.

A little tweaking in PS Elements helped a little but it can't replace a good light source.

 

[bmouth]

buff once bubbled...
I am guessing that you didn't have a strobe on your camera?

Using the cameras default flash can work in good visibility water to about 10 feet-maybe.

It's all about the light.

On those Jaques Cousteau shows when some poor sap carrying 800 pounds of light aims it at the reef, the whole reef lights up and the colors are incredible. You can't have enough light-almost.

It's about compostition too. Shooting down on your subject makes them look small. Shooting up and getting close(the real secret) makes them look big. Try and fill the whole composition with your subject-creates drama. Otherwise your shots will look like a scienfitic collection.

Nah, I haven't even got my diver certificate yet, not really interested in spending another 1000 in getting a strobe... I know there are some more tweakings I can do with the current equipment to increase the quality of the pictures, and that is really what I am looking for. I would rather learn how to use and fully utilize this camera before moving on.

 

[diverws]

Here's a shot on a nudibranch, taken off Pulau Dayang, West Malaysia.

 

[bmouth]

Dee once bubbled...
Actually the default white balance setting on all the Oly cameras seem to work the best. I've set the WB at depth and couldn't see that much difference.

It's not you WB that's off, you need to be using the internal flash, if not an external strobe.

A little tweaking in PS Elements helped a little but it can't replace a good light source.

Thanks, amazing work with PS Elements~ :wacko:

Ya, I don't remember which ones, but some of the pics were taken with the flash on and some without... I think I was more satisfied with the pictures without the flash... but again I might be wrong... I still have the EXIF info for the pictures... I will check them out and compare the flash later...

Thanks for the info~