Green-water Yukon shots

Wow, I am afraid to do this, but I have had encouragement from two of you, so here goes....

We dove the Yukon last weekend - while the vis was not bad on the wreck, there was a thick, dense muck layer at 20 ft or so that blocked out most of the ambient light. DARK!!!!!

I have been really forcing myself to do some wide-angle work, though I feel like I am consistently screwing up the exposure, and I always seem to have my WA lens on when conditions are at their worst!!!!!! I almost always find a hotspot somewhere. This time, I cranked the ISO to 400, shutter speed was 1/40, and aperture was 6.3 or something, I think, and I turned the strobes to 1/2 power to try to prevent hotspots. These shots are certainly improved over what I'd have done a month or two ago, but I am looking for some good critique - my GOD, WA just makes me want to rip my hair out and stomp off crying!!!!!!

(NATURALLY - just realized I'd have been better off posting these in the critique boards...whoops...)

these were shot with a 15 mm FE, they have been adjusted for exposure and saturation a bit in Lightroom, and that's really about it.

Thanks in advance - Allison

A local diver who is big in the wreck to reefs program - a bit of backscatter on the bottom left....

The glow behind the metridium is my husband - I sent him over to model in the corner, only once he was there, we couldn't see each other - only lights. So I tried to make the most of it...

these are great Allison!

Its really nice that you have the foreground exposed sooo well, while accomodating the dark water

The green reminds me of diving the Yukon, so to me its perfect

cheers

Leander

It's always a bit difficult on the web, but technically those both look really good at this resolution, and the lighting is spot on, great!

The next step is to make it more difficult, by getting closer, which means cutting the strobes back to a quarter power but keeping the shutter speed and f-stop the same, to get the green background. It's the main trick to wide-angle. The subject in the second image, the plumose anemone (Metridium senile?), would then dominate the frame. With wreckage it's more difficult as you really have to find a bit of the wreck that makes sense, find an angle that makes it recognisable, then put your partner behind it... and get close.

If you are using a full-frame sensor then a 15mm is perfect, cropped sensors do better with an even wider lens, about 10mm focal length.

Alex Mustard has some tips about tweaking the colour of the strobe light to get really nice green backgrounds, but that's a bit of fine tuning that is less important than getting close and matching strobe with natural light (basically, you need a bluish tinge to the strobe light, then balance the colours so that white appears as white in the foreground). Using Inon strobes works, but they need to be reddened in blue water or the background looks grey.

It's always difficult, especially in cold water, and you waste a lot of photographs with wide angle, but it's fantastic when it works, so please keep going.

Here are examples of recognisable and unrecognisable cold-water wreckage:

recognisable:

the propellor looks like one!

10.5mm

unrecognisable:

but the Dead Mens' Fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) fill a lot of the frame.

10.5mm

Tim

B)

Good images.

Love Tim's mini article.

I like the space in the first image and the separation of the diver from the wreck. The light is a great connection between those two balanced elements. I think it is a stronger image for that space.

I also like the foreground, middle, and backgrond elements of the second image. An old school technique for art, but more uncommon underwater IMHO

Just wanted to say thanks for the nice comments - not so scary after all!

Tim, I totally agree about getting closer - thanks...and thanks for the detailed response. I was really hoping you'd chime in! In retrospect, I was so annoyed about not having the diver (um, you know, my husband) in the position I'd envisaged, I didn't even think about how I could optimize the shot. As it is, nearly EVERY time I've had a WA lens on, I've come away at the end thinking I should have gotten closer!!! I'll take that thought with me this weekend...when I use my 10 mm rectilinear lens (wide, but soft at the edges, so not my favorite) on my - yes - cropped sensor camera. Oh, that I had a 10 mm FE, but if I buy another lens outright instead of waiting for a gift-giving holiday, there will be spousal retaliation - like another car in the driveway!!! However, maybe by the time December rolls around, I will actually be able to do a wider FE lens justice....

Again, thanks...