Banded Seasnake

Hi all,

Here's a shot taken with Nikkor 12-24mm/D70/Seacam/Dual DS125 in Manado, Indonesia. Banded seasnakes are quite common here. Would appreciate your constructive comments, thanks.

Good job capturing the action Marcus!

IMO, the picture lacks a bit of contrast, and has a green cast to it. This can be easily resolved if you shot this in RAW, but banding in the water shows up when you touch up the JPEG file. The number of divers and the bubbles make the shot a bit busy too...

I agree about the processing, and that the divers are distracting. Also, I know this is not a simple suggestion to follow, but next time try to get closer to the seasnake!

Hi Matt!

Are you Mathieu? I met you at Celebrate the Sea at Suntec City this year remember? Was asking you about the Seacam housing, well, I got it! Yeah I shot this in RAW so the colour isn't a problem to fix. The snake came really quickly and I could only take one shot of it and this was it! It was actually quite close but on the 12mm lens it doesn't seem that close. Very soon the snake was already behind me...

PS. Michael also sold me a copy of the book you co-authored with him...

I agree, you need to get closer.

Even with an UWA lens you can still get closer. Here is a seasnake shot I took with a fisheye lens and still managed to fill the frame with just it's head. You dont need to get that close, but closer would be much better.

Yep I think the snake has to take some prominance in the frame. Right now the eye is drawn to all the divers in the frame and the bubbles, then you notice there is a snake.

Hi Matt!

Are you Mathieu? I met you at Celebrate the Sea at Suntec City this year remember? Was asking you about the Seacam housing, well, I got it! Yeah I shot this in RAW so the colour isn't a problem to fix. The snake came really quickly and I could only take one shot of it and this was it! It was actually quite close but on the 12mm lens it doesn't seem that close. Very soon the snake was already behind me...

 

PS. Michael also sold me a copy of the book you co-authored with him...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep, That's me. I remember our conversation at CTS. Congratulations on your housing!

Since this was shot in RAW, try to do a custom white balance to eliminate the green cast, nudge the curves in a slight 'S' shape to improve contrast, and crop a bit to increase the prominance of the snake. This should help a fair bit...

Cheers,

Mathieu

Hi Mathieu,

Thanks. This has already been cropped a little bit to make it more aesthetically pleasing...rule of thirds etc... I did not want to crop out anymore of the divers because I wanted to portray 'diving' as an activity where the snake is not the highlight. Besides, it's too small on the picture!! Will try the custom curves later...

Ciao