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My first gallery
12 posts
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James....WTG on your first gallery....I like the website....easy to use
You have got some great subjects from your trip and you've got a good eye for compostion, but you need to work on your exposure/strobe control....many seem to be overexposed.
Tell us more about your rig and how you set it up to shoot....maybe we can make some suggestions for nailing exposures on your next trip
Good Job
Karl
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Thanks Karl,
I have a 20D in an Ike housing with a single DS 125 strobe (I lost the diffuser on day 2 - it was one of those inevitable things). I've moved up from a Sony P9 which was using the internal flash so this was very much the first stage in the learning experience for me.
I'm heading to the Coral Sea in January for a 7 day liveaboard so all the advice on exposure I can get will be much appreciated. I'm a self confessed newby with photography, the rig is my reward to myself for completing an MBA (well, almost..), hopefully I'll now have time to put in the time to learning this!
Many thanks
James
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Hi James,
I agree with Karl, there is a lot of potential in the shots, but many of them are too bright. Did you use the 20D in TTL mode? How much post processing did you do to the photos?
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Also, if you have the capability (lens) get closer. A little trick is to shoot "slightly" under exposed. Then you can bring the exposure up in PhotoShop. Going the other way is harder and adds more risk of a poor image. Using TTL (if you are) in wide angle is very tricky. You might shoot manual in wide angle. That way you can control the ambient light and strobe fill.
Good luck.
Joe
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nice pix. Impressive for a first time.
One problem in several of the images (and it is a common problem I see all the time) is that you, your RAW converter or your camera is over white balancing the shots. In otherwords you/it are setting too warm a colour temperature with means that your blue water is turning grey!
Keep your white balance on a more "normal" setting and light the subject well with your strobe and then the camera or you won't be trying to compensate for too much blue in your shots and you will retain the lovely blue water.
Alex
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Thank you all for your comments..
The camera and strobe were in TTL mode, the aiming of the strobe was certainly questionnable though! Practice will help with this aspect I suppose, it's getting into the habit of thinking about it - the dolphin being the perfect case in point in that I didn't actually consider where the strobe was aiming -THERE WAS A DOLPHIN!!!!!
And I've definitely got carried away in photoshop without entirely knowling what I was doing although the web site feature is extremely convenient... Can anyone recommend any good books on the technicalities of taking digital underwater photographs rather than necessarily composition? I've noticed 1 book that claims to help in the post processing but it was published in 2002 and has a new version coming out in 06, so I think I'll wait for that..
I think more understanding of TTL and exposure is in order. This was very much a first adventure which involved much pointing and clicking.
I appreciate the feedback, it's good to know which areas to focus on first!
James
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Jack and Sue Draful "Underwater Digital Imaging".
Joe
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Hi James,
I like your gallery, but it's giving me trouble using Firefox. When I click on the thumbnail of the Napolean wrasse, it maximizes the photo and pushes the navigation link and all the thumbnails down below the bottom of my screen. There's no way for me to scroll down.
So I can't go back, can't go fwd, all I can do is close teh window.
Cheers
James
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Are you in 1024 x 768 by any chance?? If you hit f12 (does firefox have that equivalent to lose all the task and menu bars? I'll go take a look) does that give you the space you need? I may have to make the images a little smaller or consider the sidebar layout for the thumbnails..
James
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Just checked it.. If you look in the bottom right hand corner of your screen you should still have the scroll options that Photoshop creates as part of the page. Firefox does still display these on the screen. You should still be able to use those to move backwards and forwards. It's not ideal though to lose the page of the bottom of the screen!
James
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Can anyone recommend any good books on the technicalities of taking digital underwater photographs rather than necessarily composition? I've noticed 1 book that claims to help in the post processing but it was published in 2002 and has a new version coming out in 06, so I think I'll wait for that..
James M.,
I'm not sure whether it's proper to do self-promotion here
, but I would recommend that you get a copy of "An Essential Guide to Digital Underwater Photography". You should find the answers to a great deal of your questions on lighting, composition, post-processing, etc...Cheers,
Mat
