Be gentle....

[Gogs]

...its my first time.... taking underwater photos!!!

Also posting them on here as well.

As I said in the intro I bought myself a wee camera to have a tinker with and try my hand at u/w photography. So Im just back from the Red Sea and eager to have you lot rip apart my shots, so here are some of them.

clown fish2.jpg


Ghiannis D1.JPG


jackson.jpg


macro1.jpg


macro2.jpg


EDIT: All the shots were taken on the Fuji Finepix F30 with the U/W setting in natural light. I have not tweaked them on photoshop or anything like that (as I dont have PS). The Macro efforts were taken on Marco mode.

gogs

[Bombebit]

Well I think you have done really really well.. they are good... nothing stopping you now..

B x

[Cussy]

Please take these as constructive:

-I liked the look of the second one from the thumbnail - nice idea. But in full there is a lot of cyan from the bright light. I would possibly convert this one to B/W to get around that.

-The third one - is that the right way round? I'm guessing it might actually be, but if you rotate it then most of the fish will be horizontal, with only a couple vertical.

-4 & 5 - both of these are looking down on the subject. In 5 I like the way the limited depth of field is giving depth back to the image, but it would look better in my mind if the closest bit of fan was in focus with the furthest fan our of focus, or a higher f number to have it all in focus. Try and find subjects to shoot up at, or if you have to shoot down then find examples where the subject won't blend into the background. I'm guessing internal strobe on 4 as it's slightly missed the centre.

-No 1 - there's always a Nemo shot! (nothing wrong with that). I would perhaps crop it a bit to get rid of the big rock in the bottom right, maybe even go portrait with just fish and anemone.

Got any more? Where were these taken? I'm off to Sharm in less than 2 weeks - can't wait never been to Red Sea before!!
Rob

[Gogs]

Originally Posted by Cussy

Please take these as constructive:

-I liked the look of the second one from the thumbnail - nice idea. But in full there is a lot of cyan from the bright light. I would possibly convert this one to B/W to get around that.

-The third one - is that the right way round? I'm guessing it might actually be, but if you rotate it then most of the fish will be horizontal, with only a couple vertical.

-4 & 5 - both of these are looking down on the subject. In 5 I like the way the limited depth of field is giving depth back to the image, but it would look better in my mind if the closest bit of fan was in focus with the furthest fan our of focus, or a higher f number to have it all in focus. Try and find subjects to shoot up at, or if you have to shoot down then find examples where the subject won't blend into the background. I'm guessing internal strobe on 4 as it's slightly missed the centre.

-No 1 - there's always a Nemo shot! (nothing wrong with that). I would perhaps crop it a bit to get rid of the big rock in the bottom right, maybe even go portrait with just fish and anemone.

Got any more? Where were these taken? I'm off to Sharm in less than 2 weeks - can't wait never been to Red Sea before!!
Rob

Hi there

2nd one - Thanks for the advice. I dont have Photoshop or anything like that to alter the images. Yeah, it wasn intentional to have the wreck shots in b/w, I have a few more with glass fish in them which would look good in that, so I will get round to that. This one was inside the Ghiannis D (sp). Great wreck!!

3rd one- It was the wall on Jackson Reef. I liked the colour contrast between the red anthias, the blue water and the coral. I may try and rotate it.

4&5 - these were just trial and error, its my first attempt at Macro (well first attempt at u/w photography) The feather coral one, yeah, I know its out of focus, all of the photos were taken on auto focus, I am going to try my camera on manual f setting.

Have a good time in the Red Sea, what are you doing, a Liveaboard or Shore based diving?? Current water temp last week was 22/23c and getting warmer.

Thanks for looking at my pics.

gogs

[Cussy]

If you want good (legal) software then you can't go wrong with the GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/). It does most things PS can do and its free - can't argue with that. To convert to B/W it's best not to just press "B/W" options. There is a thread on here somewhere linking to an excellent website that gives you about 10 different ways to convert to B/W. Your starting image is already quite dark, so doing it carefully could give good results. You will find that most B/W photographers shoot with a strong colour filter top side, this can significantly change the appearance of the final image - in software you're just doing the same in post processing.

Autofocus is always a pain to get used to and one of the biggest let downs you will ever get is when you think you've got "the shot" and once downloaded its out of focus. Try taking photos of flowers topside, best of all in a darkened room to get used to how the focus performs in low light. Low light = low f number = very restricted depth of view. It's always tempting to get the camera that little bit too close....

As for the Red Sea, we are shore based. I just hope I don't end up with a "follow my leader at 100 miles an hour"-type guide!

Rob

[triplefin]

What a good start....well done.
Lots of good tips there from Rob. I liked the last two best, but then I tend to like Macro stuff.
Now you need to have a go in our luverly green water