Turtle and Trumpet Fish

I'm still trying. Feel free to chime in with any suggestions (in the water or in post production) on my latest attempts. I'm still working on every aspect of underwater photography (as you can tell)...

Hi Jeff,

At least with your first photo, i see a very common mistake that many people make, and that's giving the photo too much ambient exposure, why it looks a little washed out and low contrast. Dial down the ambient and use more strobe to expose the turtle. It would help to know what settings you're using, usually auto modes try to give you a balanced ambient exposure, and you don't want that underwater. Underexpose the ambient, usually by 1-2 stops and use strobes to fill in the foreground subject.

the 2nd photo is much more balanced exposure-wise. its a nice photo, but i'd say loosen up the crop a bit. Even though the background in that is also quite bright, giving it a decent ambient exposure, since the foreground would be silhouetted in the ambient light, the strobe fill balances it. The turtle photo, without strobe would have near even ambient light through the frame, and why it needs to be dialed down more. this is also because the trumpet fish shot is pointed up, towards open water, and the turtle is pointed down. up is better. hope that helps. cheers,

chris

Hi Jeff,

You might want to try processing the turtle as a B&W shot. I took the whole image 1/2 a stop down then gave it a little more contrast. I think you can try a slightly different crop so the eye is not right in the middle and see what you think. My version is a little overcooked because I 'm playing with the jpeg. You can do better with the raw file.

Have fun,

Steve

Thanks Chris. That's exactly the kind of help I need. Some exposure info:

Turtle:

Nikon D300

Manual Mode

ISO 1000

70mm

f/10

1/160

2 DS 125 set at 1/4 each

Depth 75 Feet

Trumpet Fish:

Nikon D300

Manual Mode

ISO 1000

45mm

f/13

1/160

2 DS 125 set at 1/4 left 1/8 right

Hey Jeff did you really use ISO 1000

If so you may want to try setting the base ISO of 200 on the D300 this will give you an image with little or no noise.

Having said that I can't see any noise in the images you've posted.

With ISO 1000 the ambient light will over expose the whole image which I suspect has happened in the Turtle shot especially at 1/160th.

It's sometimes preferable to under-expose the background by a couple of stops to give some contrast to the subject, with the subject correctly exposed using the strobe(s)

Nikon D300 1/320sec f13 ISO-200 metered for the water and sunburst less 3 stops

BTW the red of the Trumpetfish against the blue water background works for me

I hope this is of help.

Nige Wade

Hey Jeff did you really use ISO 1000

 

If so you may want to try setting the base ISO of 200 on the D300 this will give you an image with little or no noise.

Having said that I can't see any noise in the images you've posted.

With ISO 1000 the ambient light will over expose the whole image which I suspect has happened in the Turtle shot especially at 1/160th.

 

It's sometimes preferable to under-expose the background by a couple of stops to give some contrast to the subject, with the subject correctly exposed using the strobe(s)

 

 

Nikon D300 1/320sec f13 ISO-200 metered for the water and sunburst less 3 stops

 

BTW the red of the Trumpetfish against the blue water background works for me

 

I hope this is of help.

 

Nige Wade

Most helpful indeed - everyone. I have some new things to try out on my next dive. I really did use ISO 1000. I thought it might be too dark at 80 feet so I upped the iso figuring an error on the right side of the histogram would be the lesser error. It my be the lessor error (or not) but it did not make for a better picture. I'll try stopping down and setting my iso at 200 next. Thanks for the all the feedback and knowledge base...

Jeff