Would welcome critiques...

ALOHA Bubble blowers and picture snappers...your critiques would be welcomed!

SONY P-9 w/ marine pak and red filter. Ambient light. 50 ft. Autolevels with Photoshop. If someone can tell me how to link to a gallery (Yahoo???) I would like to post more. Looking for input for ambient light amatuer photo contest submissions. Thanks to All!!! Be kind to the Honu!

One more...this one is deeper (114 ft), again ambient light, SONY P-9 with Marine Pack housing. I will hold at these two for now. Thanks Again to all!!!

Joe, have you ever tried to shoot same (almost) pictures with and without red filter? just want to know the difference.

I really like the subject of the second picture. That darn little fish, near in the right upper portion of the picture (with the diver), is a little distracting for me. I'm sure he wouldn't cooperate at the time and leave his home. I would have liked more of the plane, and less of the divers, as a personal preference. Good one.

Sean

:)Thank you both for looking at my pictures! Dolphine I have tried shooting close to the same shots with and without the filter and it made a huge difference. The filter really brings in the colors. Grasshopper, AGREED on the little fish. I have seen other photos where people just "took out the fish in the forground for better composition with photoshop", so I bought a book last week on photoshop to try and figure it out. I have one that is almost exclusively airplane, but there are no fish either I thought it looked a bit blah...Thank you BOTH again for looking and comments!

Joe Honu

joe, can you show the pictures w and w/o red filter? I like to first shot, the color is not bluish but it's just too bad you are in the same swimming direction as the fish

I haven't kept any of the shot comparisons w/ vs w/o the filter. The difference was enough for me to just want to delete the w/o pics. BUT, I will try and go out this weekend and take some for side by sides. Any excuse for a good dive!!!B)

Joe

Critique:

Shot #1:

The subject (the fish) is moving away from you at an angle. They do that just to piss us off. It takes patience and careful approach to capture the subject at an angle to get at least 50% of the subjects face.

Middle ground (the ocean floor) is a little soft or out of focus. Not a serious problem if the subject were taking up more of the frame. A smaller f-stop may have given you a more pleasing result. At the same time, a smaller f-stop would have required a longer shutter speed, which increases the possibility of camera shake, blurring the whole scene.

The blue water background is devoid of any interest. Less of it would have been better.

Bottom line, a closer shot with the subject angled toward you would have yielded a better shot.

Shot #2:

Ask yourself, "What was I trying to capture?" Take an inventory of your scene. This includes every physical item, lines, colors, shapes. Now, what in your inventory do you want to include in order to capture the shot you were trying? Items that may have detracted from your intentions may include the divers on the left.

Near: The plane is the near. Make sure it is sharp focus and includes everything you want and get it as close to you as possible. You want the viewer to be drawn to it (as opposed to the divers).

Middle: The diver on the right? If so, the diver needed to be closer to the plane, but not in front of it. Middle needs to be darn close to the Near. The diver needs to be almost horizontal (slight angle up or down). Time the shot so the bubbles are not blocking any part of the diver.

Far: The blue water background? Or perhaps the other divers. For a wreck, a plain blue water background is sufficient.

Edge patrol: Carefully examine the entire edge of the frame. See anything? Perhaps getting the entire tail of the plane would have been better. How about half a fish in the upper right? How about cutting off the background divers top of head? These are considerations in getting the shot YOU want.

looks likethe tank was re-coloured. Seems awfully yellow / green and bright for that depth. Agreed th puffer should be swimming towards you, they just have not figured that one out yet.

looks likethe tank was re-coloured.  Seems awfully yellow / green and bright for that depth.  Agreed th puffer should be swimming towards you, they just have not figured that one out yet.

I suspect the color of the plane is the result of the filter. I would view that as an advantage rather than an error.

I liked the amount of blue water in the first shot. It would be nice for the subject to fill the frame more completely.

Thanks to all for the wonderful commentary everyone! Scorpio: What a great system for checking out photos! Understand this is probably UW photo 101, but I apppreciate the info! That "edge patrol" is aright on the mark. So far (fairly inexperienced w/ U/W photo....I see to be looking at my shots and saying "This turned out to be a decent photo EVEN THOUGH I was shooting for this or that. Your comment on "What was it you were trying to capture" will "refocus" my efforts The fact I am using a point and shoot makes it a bit more challenging, but 1 toy at a time.

I talked to that fish for a good 10 minutes and told him EXACTLY which direction I wanted him to swim, how fast, facial expression, mood, etc...but his union got involved and he just did his own thing.

Good idea too on the 50% fish face rule.

The only adjustment I did on the photo was "autolevels", no recoloring of the tank. The SONY seems to REALLY pick out colors and make them pop as you can see in this shot of my wife finning off the corsair.

Again, THANKS to everybody!!! Every little bit helps, and your "little" may be my "whole bunch"!!!

Joe