First shots

[aquakiwi]

I tried my Canon 400D for the first time last weekend, whilst not true macro
I used the kit lens 18-55mm.

[aquakiwi]

Not sure why my pics won't show up.

[TimIngmire]

How are you trying to attach the photo's?

[aquakiwi]

I'm loading them from some of my pictures in Photobucket, trouble is I'm hopeless with computors.

[Helen]

Hi aquakiwi,

If you look underneath/ bottom right your pics in photobucket there is a line that says "IMG code" if you copy the info next to this and then paste into your post the images should show (thats what i do so hopefully should work!)

HTH
Helen

[TimIngmire]

And there they are!

And very nice too - very good results for a first time out with the new set-up, I really like the composition - you must be pleased.

Any more to show?

Also, a little bit of levels / curves adjustment to restore some contrast in the pics would really lift them.

Tim

[aquakiwi]

No I have'nt managed to get out as the weather has been shocking, good advice on using levels/curves, I'm still finding my way through photoshop.
I've only just started using it.

[Cussy]

Nice photos, worth the wait.

I've totally ditched PS and gone over to Lightroom. I find the control it gives much better and find it a lot easier to do the regular things very quickly (post-white balancing etc). It works on RAW and jpeg, although I find white-balancing works better on RAW images. In LR you can easily always display your curves. Adjustment is split into 4, which from memory is black (i.e. dark shades), fill-in (midtones, so you do a sort of fill-in flash adjustment), can't remember the third one, and recovery (which helps recover areas that are blown out). Add to this easy controls on contrast, brightness and EV and you can very quickly get stunning results, or even totally alter the lighting in a good shot to become an effect shot. But the best feature I'm finding is you can change the saturation and luminance of different tones, so if you have blue water photos you can bring out the saturation of all tones but leave blue untouched; or you can even change the blue of bluewater photos to a much nicer deep blue using luminance controls [equally you can do the same to the green of green water photos]. I think LR is much better setup for photographers, but there are a lot of things it can't do that PS can do, but I don't miss them and if needed I can use CS2. If you haven't taken a look at Lightroom then its well worth loading up the demo.
Rob

[simonmort]

Like the first fish image,light levels look very good to me.Silver fish tend to bounce any strobe light back, getting the strobe positions wrong or power to high and the shot is ruined,so would agree with tim some nice shots.
Also another good piece of software is fotostation pro,which is similar to adobe light room.
simon.

[aquakiwi]

Thanks for the comments guys, I have'nt managed to get out since those shots were taken due to bad weather. Shoud have my 8" dome arriving soon so the 10-20mm will be due for testing.