Red Sea Virgin

[Cussy]

Well I thought I'd better go and see what all the fuss is about, so I spent a week with my good mate Mark in Sharm. We did 12 dives in the usual sort of places.

This was the first proper trip of the new setup, having only got it wet once in Stoney Cove before hand. My intension was to slowly work from what I know to try new things. As it turned out, I was too much like a kid in a candy shop and was far too snappy, but by about day 4 I was being a lot more selective with what I wanted to capture.

The downside of the trip was the failure of my strobe. Basically user error. I always put fresh batteries in at the end of every day. On day 3 I must have over-tightened the battery door, as when I undid it it came away from the wrong end - to put it simply, the door no longer goes on. So the last three days were all spend on ambient light with the wide angle on.

I am slowly working my way through the RAW files, but here are a selection that were processed on my laptop whilst out there (that explains why some of them look a bit dark).

My conclusions of the Red Sea were as follows:
- Follow my bloody leader - far too many divers in every shot
- Far too many smashed up corals
- Far too many people who shouldn't even be allowed in the water, let alone have a camera!
- I thought the diving in Mozambique was better and snorkelling in Hawaii was also better.
- Mark needs a lot more training on how to model.
- I will be back...

Rob

[Cussy]

And a few more

[Gogs]

Nice. I like them.

Esp the turtle ones in the second batch. Were they taken in ambient light?

[Cussy]

The first one of the coral (in first batch), the anemone fish, and my mate Mark with all the toilets are with the strobe, the rest are ambient light.

[TimIngmire]

The look on the face of the Diver above the loo's really does look like he's in need of one of them

So, did you find the photography any easier than around the UK Rob?

Tim

[Gogs]

Originally Posted by Cussy

The first one of the coral (in first batch), the anemone fish, and my mate Mark with all the toilets are with the strobe, the rest are ambient light.

What sort of depth were they in? Did you use a filter on them?

Im just curious as the stuff I was taking in the red sea were still coming out still blue in colour, not as natural looking as your ones.

thanks

gogs

[Cussy]

Gogs,
I get you point, so here's a bit of background:
Photo 1: Balanced light, 20m+
Photo 2: Natural light, would guess this is 6m - 10m on descent at start of dive
Photo 3: Balanced light; Wreckage on Yolanda is about 10m
Photo 4: Strobe lighting
Photo 5: Natural light, 20-25m
Photo 6: Natural light, 20-25m
Photo 7: Natural light, 10m (on wreckage of Yolanda)
Photo 8: same as 7
Photo 9: Natural light, think this is no more than 6m depth

Neither of my lenses will allow filters, so I don't use them. What I do though is white balance at depth using a white wrist slate; although this often doesn't work with the fisheye lens. I always adjust the white balance during the RAW processing. I'm now using Adobe Lightroom, which is just light Raw Shooter Essential, only with a number of improvements. It's rare to find a photo without white tones, so I select white from an area of the photo that I want to balance (I even do this for the photos where the strobe is on). I then fine tune the white balance until the tones appear as I remembered, or at least natural. You don't actually need to find white within the picture; when you do the image often still looks blue, if you find other natural tones in the image it takes the blue away. Lightroom then allows you to adjust saturation of individual tones, which for the Red Sea means you can saturate the reds and yellows without affecting the blue; for green water (see my Stoney Splash-in photos) I do the same but don't saturate green. In Photo 7 I have changed the blue to make it darker - don't think I got it right on the laptop, but it does make the image better.

I'm pretty sure Lightroom will also deal with jpegs, so its worth a go if you don't shoot RAW. I think Lightroom is absolutely fantastic and does everything I want it to do (It is very rare for me to praise software).
HTH
Rob

[Gogs]

Thanks for that.

gogs

[KenByrne]

Nice shots Rob. The white balancing in post has worked well.

I had a similar problem with my DS51 one the day I received it, I think I cross threaded it. It went back and was replaced. Since then I've had a small leak, fortunately in fresh water so I'm now worried about getting the thing tightened just right.

When I'm in the Red Sea my buddy and I refuse to play follow my leader after the first dive. I've found the dive guides OK if you tell them you want to take your time and take photo's. Once they can see you can dive they're usually relieved to be able to leave you alone after the briefing and concentrate on the numpties.

Ken

[alijtaylor]

I've had that problem too with the DS 51... sounds a pretty common fault
Alison