I spent Christmas in Cozumel and did 10 dives with Aqua Safari. My synch cord was flaky due to the abuse it took from being on an Ikelite 20D housing. I managed to get my strobes firing by jimmying the cable until the yellow LED light lit up. Next time I'm going to pack a spare (after replacing the current cord).
The diving was great. It was my first time at Cozumel. The shallow reefs looked pretty beat up, possibly due to hurricane damage. Many of the piers are currently inoperable and are still being repaired. Comments welcomed.
I want to make you better so I will be less nice . Looking at most of the pics (and I looked a lot of them - enlarging them). It reminds me of my slide pages when I started out - tons of scenics with no impact, but it is good practice I just don't show them to people. They need divers or a subject to make them have impact. Overall I notice on most of the pics is that your arperature is too small. The strobe is being drained to light stuff, poping out the corals and subjects and the background is too dark. The diver and turtle is a good expample and some scenics where the surface is too dark. Without knowing the depths the f-stop appears to be arounf close to f-11 or smaller on a lot of them. This gives you nice depth of field but the pics would be more balanced if you open up some more. The goal is to make the pic look like there is no strobe, nice blue back and colorful front (balanced). The pics of the fish were ok, the composition was good, you will get better naturally but the compositions are not bad at all on most of them. And watch the camera shake little fo some extra sharpness. You had some nice comments on your site and your pics are good they are not blowing smoke up your butt but I hope my tips make your next shots better.
Overall I notice on most of the pics is that your arperature is too small. The strobe is being drained to light stuff, poping out the corals and subjects and the background is too dark. The diver and turtle is a good expample and some scenics where the surface is too dark. Without knowing the depths the f-stop appears to be arounf close to f-11 or smaller on a lot of them. This gives you nice depth of field but the pics would be more balanced if you open up some more. The goal is to make the pic look like there is no strobe, nice blue back and colorful front (balanced).
Hey Photobeat - thanks for the suggestions. These type of things seem obvious but it takes someone to mention it to sink in. It really bothered me that most of my wide angle shots were out of balance, I'll try opening up the aperture next time.
Will, I really like the way the pattern on the trunkfish came out. Cool! I hope you all gave the guy who puffed the puffer a hard time. I have read that puffing up is a very stressful event.
. Looking at most of the pics (and I looked a lot of them - enlarging them). It reminds me of my slide pages when I started out - tons of scenics with no impact, but it is good practice I just don't show them to people. They need divers or a subject to make them have impact. Overall I notice on most of the pics is that your arperature is too small. The strobe is being drained to light stuff, poping out the corals and subjects and the background is too dark. The diver and turtle is a good expample and some scenics where the surface is too dark. Without knowing the depths the f-stop appears to be arounf close to f-11 or smaller on a lot of them. This gives you nice depth of field but the pics would be more balanced if you open up some more. The goal is to make the pic look like there is no strobe, nice blue back and colorful front (balanced). The pics of the fish were ok, the composition was good, you will get better naturally but the compositions are not bad at all on most of them. And watch the camera shake little fo some extra sharpness. You had some nice comments on your site and your pics are good they are not blowing smoke up your butt but I hope my tips make your next shots better.
