Grouper in bad visibility

Hello

I was quite lucky yesterday to have a grouper being interested in his mirror image in the dome of my camera.

However visibility was bad (2m) and the image I got has very flat colours, the histogram shows no detail in shadows and highlights.

What could I do to improve the out of the camera image , what did I do wrong ?

I PS-ed the image to rescue it : http://static.flickr.com/106/305587369_e0801679c5_o.jpg

Sven.

D200, DS800 TTL, 17-55 at 55 with +2 diopter, 1/60, F4

Hi Sven

Looks like the focus locked on the particulate as opposed to the fish. It is definitely a tough one to get the focus you want in turbid water. Do you use AF-S or AF-C? i think in that situation you might be better off using AF-C as you can control the focus better. i think you can save it a bit by messing with your shadows.. I assume you shot this in RAW? what i would do is try sliding the shadows slider in the raw conversion which should help quite a bit. You can then bring up the black or neutrals in selective colour to help a little bit more.

Also, have you tried a vertical crop on this image? That will get rid of some of the distracting background.

I shoot is these sorts of conditions regularly (Scottish sea loch mud!). My own method of dealing with the raw file is to adjust the exposure slider to centre(ish) the histogram, increase the contrast by moving the contrast slider to the right, then use a mix of brightness and shadows to stretch the histogram to both endpoints. Open as a 16-bit file and use Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight to modify until you achieve a acceptable image - watch the histogram at all stages to ensure that no clipping or toothiness appears. Finally edit as much backscatter/dust as possible and finally convert it to an 8-bit image for use. In poor vis this can yield better results than was ever achievable on film (IMHO)!

Diving in these types of conditions the best thing to do is shoot macro. <_< Your Ps'd version is better but looks very processed.

Out of the camera you could have gotten closer and not centered the fish so much, and also scrunched down to get a bit lower but best to delete images like these than waste time on them.

Quote "best to delete images like these than waste time on them"

This depends!

Mud dwellers are often poorly documented as few underwater photographers see them as worthy subjects. I shoot stuff in such conditions simply because it is relatively little photographed. Whilst the undersea world is full of beautiful underseascapes and vibrant, colourful creatures, that is far from being the whole story. As a natural history shooter I see no reason to limit my photography to good vis if some critturs live in places where the vis is predominantly poor. And by CAREFUL post processing it is often possible to produce surprisingly useful images.

Thanks to all of you for the advise. It is really a great help to me to hear from the pro's

@ Mike, I prefer the AF-S, allows me to block focus when I have it and than reframe. The original image however was not so flat because of focus I think. I do not know how to get it better straight out of the camera. Thanks for the tip about the vertical framing and the PS.

@ Photobeat, I guess he was at about 50cm from the camera and I was flat on the bottom! You're right the PS images looks overdone.

A new try: http://static.flickr.com/106/309383349_82d2658993_o.jpg

I have some others on my site: www.flickr.com/photos/svenalgerie

@ Mike, I prefer the AF-S, allows me to block focus when I have it and than reframe. The original image however was not so flat because of focus I think. I do not know how to get it better straight out of the camera. Thanks for the tip about the vertical framing and the PS.

Sven: Though the focus on this shot is fine, using AF-S to focus and reframe U/W only works when the distance between the camera and subject stays exactly the same. This is dangerous since things are constantly moving underwater - I would suggest trying to get comfortable changing the focus areas (so easy on a D200!) and using AF-C which I always use U/W and above.

A new try: http://static.flickr.com/106/309383349_82d2658993_o.jpg

The vertical crop looks much better, but there are still way too many midtones in the picture. Go to the levels command in PS and try playing with the middle slider - I think you'll be surprised at the difference it can make. Take the midtones down till it gets rid of the washed out look, then take the highlights up until the brightest areas almost go completely white. Aim in the direction of the your first edit, just be careful not to overdo it. Knowing how much to PS an image can be tough and requires practice and often an outside opinion! The more I learn the more I find myself re-editing old images often with fantastic results. (... so never delete the original!)

Sven,

A simple levels move (less than 5 seconds in Photoshop) revealed this:

Best,

Tom Stack

http://www.tomstackphoto.com

Willy Volk saw the picture and put in on Divester ! Nice.

http://www.divester.com/2007/01/30/this-is-why-we-dive/

Yep, on my next dive I forgot the O ring and ... bye bye camera. It seems that diving in a rush after work is not always that relaxing ...

@Tom.

PS really does wonders. But there is nothing better than starting with a good out of the camera image I think.

When you look at the original images it is really flat. I wanted to know what I can do to get it better "out of the camera". Maybe, given the bad visi (1,5m) this was the best I could do ?

-> get closer: I was quite close already

-> focus with AF-C, I'm going to try this when I will have my new camera, but focus seems ok

Thank you all for your comments.