First attempt at editing

Hello All,

This is my first attempt at u/w fixed image photography with image editing. The edited picture was taken in California (Channel Islands) while freediving (breath hold) and the fish are White Sea Bass and a Bat ray. For those who are not familiar with these fish they are very spooky and hard to get close to. The visibility was around 20ft, the camera settings were ISO 200, Ambient light (very cloudy), Shutter Priority 1/80s, Auto focus (continuous servo), Center point meter reading, Auto White Balance and the lens setting was wide angle. The camera is a G10 housed within a factory case. I cropped the lower and right side portions of the photo. My question is should I also crop the upper fish out of the picture and how do I eliminate the white line that is running down the middle right portion of the picture? Or can it be eliminated at all? This line is a piece of thin kelp (commonly know as eel grass). With this photo I used "INFRAN" for editing software. In the future I will be using Canon's editing software that is included with the camera.

Thank you in advance for any advice as I will need all I can get for future photos!!

DB

Link to Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/singlebreath/3603188871/

Thank you in advance for any advice as I will need all I can get for future photos!!

 

Link to Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/singlebreath/3603188871/

Hi DB!

I'm a new user on this forum, but I think that this image could benefit from a bit of higher contrast. It might be how the waters were

at the time, but is looks a bit "foggy". Yes, I think you should crop the fish out of the image since they throw the balance of the composition out of wack (imho.)

Hi DB!

 

I'm a new user on this forum, but I think that this image could benefit from a bit of higher contrast. It might be how the waters were

at the time, but is looks a bit "foggy". Yes, I think you should crop the fish out of the image since they throw the balance of the composition out of wack (imho.)

I would even crop out the entire lower part of the picture and concentrate onn the kelp (to have foreground and depth) on the left and on the ray and lower fish. The picture would have been perfect if the ray was swimming towards us but but I think that under the circumstances and available equipment that wouild be too much to ask.

Leendert

nice job. I've done some White Sea Bass photography while skin diving in the area myself. It's nice that you saw more than one.

btw, that "foggy" look is fairly common when taking ambient light photos in our sometimes "murky" local conditions.

Scott

You would benefit greately if you start shooting in raw format. The options to correct w/b and other color corrections would help this photo tremendously. A very nice photo especially free diving.

Hello,

First off I want to thank each & every one of you who responded to my inquiries. It is quite apparent that I need all the help I can get. I will respond to each of your recommendations in one post to minimize viewer confusion-or at least I hope so.

Twistah: I have tried to use the contrast feature but it seems that I have a heavy hand!! The foggy conditions that you speak of are a feature of the typical California visibility. Much like the worlds opinion of the California culture!! Just a half hearted joke! I really appreciate your suggestion and I will attempt to employ the contrast feature more in the future.

Leendert: Thank you this is exactly what I was hoping for. I have no experience with cropping and your suggestions are well received. Again I need all the suggestions I can get.

Scott: Thank you for the compliment and yes I agree about the Ray but I really did not have time to ask him/her if they would reverse course. My humor again. I have many pictures of schools of White Sea Bass but again the California visibility is very limiting. If you or any others would like to view some I will post addition photos. One day I hope to have the fish and the visibility cooperate.

Kokopedal: I find that freediving often offers one the opportunity to get much closer to pelagic "wild" fish than a person could get while SCUBA diving. Please, I really do not wish to initiate a debate over what method is better, it is just my personal observation. The shot was taken in the RAW format. I just do not know how to post a RAW picture in Flikr. Every time I tried it would reject it as to large a file. Call me a computer Dinosaur!! I readily admit to it

To all I will continue to post pictures of Pelagic fish for your comments. My next question is would I really see an appreciable increase in color enhancement with a Magic filter in my local waters? I only shoot with ambient light.

DB

If the sun is behind you, you may get an improvement using a green-water Magic filter.

In ambient light, the only other thing that you can do is to get much closer (which is usually much easier as a free-diver).

I would expect the milkyness to be from shooting towards the sun? It looks a bit extreme for an ambient light shot. Even with strobes, an image taken in 20' visibility should be less milky. I guess that a shutter speed of 1/120 might also help.

It's usually the case that the answer to an unsuccessful underwater image is "go back and shoot it again". Seeking the solution in Photoshop or your favourite post-processing software often means that it's too difficult to go back...

Tim

PS: I'm pretty sure that Flickr won't take RAW images: you submit your jpegs after processing them.