Constructive criticism please...

Please be gentle, I am a novice photographer.

This is a link to my set in Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fontainedento...57617838908772/

Keep in mind that some of these pics were taken on my first dive with a camera, and I know there are some obvious mistakes. Anyway I would really love to hear some constructive criticism to get my brain thinking about how I can improve my UW photography. Of course I would also love to hear what you like about the picture as well as what you dislike...

Thanks very much for your advice! These pictures were taken from the New Zealand, Grenadines, Norway, Scotland, Tobago, Galapagos, and Virginia Beach.

added... woops, i didnt see the photo critique section... will post this on the proper board sorry

Cheers,

Fontaine

Hi Happy!

Any relation to Mr. Gilmore? You've made some nice pictures with the Olympus. The newer New Zealand stuff is definitely getting better. I'm not that familar with your camera, how close can you focus? I also noticed much nicer light on some of the later pictures. Which strobe are you using? You might think about going to a little higher iso setting if you can. Iso 64 is giving you very long shutter speeds which will make it harder to get a nice sharp image. In general some of them look like they could be a might sharper if you can adjust it. You have a nice selection of subjects too. If I can make a suggestion; I got more input from folks here when I linked in just a couple of my best shots vrs. posting all of them. A lot of folks get a liitle inundated with a whole group of photos. If you have a special one or one you'd like to get some help on you might be more likely to get some good answers.

Thanks for sharing your pictures, I'm looking forward to seeing some more on Flickr!

Be Happy,

Steve

Hi Happy!

Any relation to Mr. Gilmore? You've made some nice pictures with the Olympus. The newer New Zealand stuff is definitely getting better. I'm not that familar with your camera, how close can you focus? I also noticed much nicer light on some of the later pictures. Which strobe are you using? You might think about going to a little higher iso setting if you can. Iso 64 is giving you very long shutter speeds which will make it harder to get a nice sharp image. In general some of them look like they could be a might sharper if you can adjust it. You have a nice selection of subjects too. If I can make a suggestion; I got more input from folks here when I linked in just a couple of my best shots vrs. posting all of them. A lot of folks get a liitle innudated with a whole group of photos. If you have a special one or one you'd like to get some help on you might be more likely to get some good answers.

 

Thanks for sharing your pictures, I'm looking forward to seeing some more on Flickr!

 

Be Happy,

Steve

Cheers Steve! Yeah as time has passed I have added bits and pieces like the S and S ys-27 strobe, inon macro lens, inon fish eye 165 WA, and a focus light. I can focus quite close with my olympus maybe three inches away in SM and 4 or 5 in regular macro, unfortunately the flash does not operate in SM mode so I cant use my strobe, i just try and light up the subject with the focus light.

Sorry im not related to Gilmore.

Thanks for the advice, I will put up some single shot posts in the photo critque section and hopefully get some more critique.

Thanks

Fontaine

hey Fontaine,

I took a quick look at the featherduster worm and moray eel, they are both from 2007. They both look like most of the light is ambient light. You shot them at a fairly wide aperture (F3.5), maybe I would try to shoot them at a smaller f-stop (F8 instead of F3.5) to block out more of the ambient light, you can keep the same shutter speed and ISO. Speeding up the shutter speed will help also, as long as you don't exceed the flash sync-speed of the camera, which is pretty fast for most compacts.

Light them up with your internal flash (forced-flash mode) or strobe as a primary source of light, this will give you better colors. Also, they both look overexposed.

A lot of the other photos look nice, with good colors, they are properly exposed by the flash, perhaps they were taken in darker waters (less ambient light).

hope this helps,

Scott

hey Fontaine,

 

I took a quick look at the featherduster worm and moray eel, they are both from 2007. They both look like most of the light is ambient light. You shot them at a fairly wide aperture (F3.5), maybe I would try to shoot them at a smaller f-stop (F8 instead of F3.5) to block out more of the ambient light, you can keep the same shutter speed and ISO. Speeding up the shutter speed will help also, as long as you don't exceed the flash sync-speed of the camera, which is pretty fast for most compacts.

 

 

Light them up with your internal flash (forced-flash mode) or strobe as a primary source of light, this will give you better colors. Also, they both look overexposed.

 

A lot of the other photos look nice, with good colors, they are properly exposed by the flash, perhaps they were taken in darker waters (less ambient light).

 

hope this helps,

Scott

Cheers Scott, this helps loads!

Fontaine