Please C&C my Mexico photos

[Chocoholic]

We are going to Cozumel soon and I am hoping to improve my technique for that trip.
Any critique will help. I am using a Olympus Camedia 740 Ultrazoom, no strobe yet (the camera doesn't have RAW capabilities). It has U/W white balance that I am reading about but haven't used yet. I have done a bit of minor adjustments in photoshop to some of the pics, but I haven't figured out how to fix the blue in PS. thanks for any help.

 

[Chocoholic]

a couple more photos.

Thanks for any input.

 

[marcaumarc]

It looks like you're off to a good start. In general, the two main pieces of advice are:

1. Get as close as you can. This minimizes the amount of water (and particulate matter) between you and your subject.

2. For the most part, shoot up whenever you can. Or sideways towards open water. When you shoot down, everything looks flat, like the photo you have right above the turtle. Also, shooting your subject against water makes it stand out more. The photo of the sharpnose puffer you are close to level with it, but there is a lot going on in the background.

Getting a strobe or two will make a big difference, especially if you are close to your subjects. It's really the best way to get color in your underwater shots (much better than setting your white balance or using photoshop).

Good luck and happy shooting!

 

[hammerhead man]

I agree with Marcaumarc, your pics are very good; however, you may want to look at getting a strobe to get the color into some of your shots. The two areas mentioned are important: 1. when you think your close, get closer and 2. try to shoot up (sometimes it isn't possible but it will improve your overall pics).

Keep up the good work.

Regards,

Bill

 

[hammerhead man]

I forgot to add that you might want to take a couple of underwater photo courses. I took a couple of courses from this site: The Underwater Photographer, Underwater Digital Photography Classes: Improve your underwater photos that were very reasonably priced and helped a lot. I took Introduction to Digital Underwater Photography, and Digital Workflow & Image Manipulation for Underwater Photography. Both Bonnie and Marty were very helpful and answered all of my questions via email or in phone calls. I also took the PADI underwater photo course.

Regards,

Bill

 

[msg]

Nice pictures. The only critique is that I wasn't there.

 

[diver 85]

When you think you are very close, get even closer-------looks good so far.......and----hold the camera as still as possible.....

 

[Gilligan]

Using the "custom" white balance setting for your non-strobe will solve your "blue" photos problem. It is a must without RAW capability to get the most out of non-strobe shots, especially at depth where a red filter won't even help.

As for the "blue" photos you already have there is an action file you can load into Photoshop that will color correct them. It is the "underwater.atn" file. You can download it from THIS SITE or do a Google search for other download sites.

Try the "daylight" and "cloudy" settings for your internal strobe shots instead of "auto". The "cloudy" setting will likely yield softer colors. You decide on which results you like best.

Keep your ISO at the lowest setting for the on-board strobe shots. For the non-strobe shots try ISO 100 and 200. Higher ISO settings will yield more digital noise.

Using you camera in the "M" setting mode will yield the best results but requires the most work.

 

[Chocoholic]

Thanks for all the input, I will try these ideas out. Also will try the fix it for the blue photos I have.
I didn't know that the tiny, little fish was a sharpnose puffer .

 

[vladimir]

Some good advice so far. I don't have a huge problem with the composition of the turtle shot. If you'd shot a string of six you might have gotten lucky and caught him lifting his head up, or further up the slope of the reef, where he'd be more level with the lens. I like the blur of motion from his left flippper--extra credit if you selected a slower shutter speed to create the effect.

I have a similar shot that came out better (but far from perfect). I tried to get level with my subject but, like your turtle, mine didn't fully cooperate. I got really close--this was taken with a 35 mm lens. And I lit my subject with my strobe (I only had one when I took this picture) and metered for the background.