i would appreciate some honesty

Sorry for posting so many shots for critique, but these are some of my best shots that i have on this pc and have spent a few hours working on the raw files to get them looking as best i can. I would like some honest feedback on them, composition, post processing, focus and anything else that I need to improve on. I really appreciate people spending time to look at them.

flickr

Stew

Hello Stew.

I am far from a worthy critic but here goes...

I think all your photos show very good attributes; in terms of compostion, peak of the action and technical properties. Of course, I am sure they were carefully chosen, as would I!

I guess these days we Wetpixelers, as those photographers most 'exposed' to the very, very best underwater images, are looking for something 'different'. For me, your image of a pair of Longimanus and the hull approaches that. The other images, whilst being one's I would be justly proud of (and I'd hang them on my wall), do not take me into that area of 'difference'.

I hope this bollox is useful... Cheers, Tim

Sorry for posting so many shots for critique, but these are some of my best shots that i have on this pc and have spent a few hours working on the raw files to get them looking as best i can. I would like some honest feedback on them, composition, post processing, focus and anything else that I need to improve on. I really appreciate people spending time to look at them.

flickr

 

Stew

Stew. Are you using a color corrected monitor? Some of the pictures color balance seem a bit off, if you are going for realism, which I felt you were. In one of the shots, the sunball had a red hue which points to over color correcting.

Overall, most of the shots were technically good as far as composition. The lighting seemed a bit uneven though in several of the shots, but that's getting really picky and I have tons of pictures myself with similar issues.

My only suggestion would be to try and look at things not as you have seen them in magazines or other shots, they have all been done to death. Work on a look that lets us know it is you who took the shot. That's the hard part, but your technique seems to say you are ready to create the "Stew" look.

Safe diving.

Hey Stew,

Overall a nice collection of shots, but if I were to focus on one thing that bothers me a little it is the composition of your shark shots. Except for shark 2, I find the others unbalanced with either too little space behind the animal as in 1,5 and 6, or not enough space in front as in 3 and 4. The good news is you should be able to improve them all either by cropping or adding space to the canvas and cloning in some background.

Shark 2 is great, tho' the blue water looks a bit false on my monitor: some of the other shots' colour is way off. Since the subjects are really good, and the composition of some shots is spot on, I would have a long, hard look at colour control in your workflow.

Tim

cheers for all the replies. I edited these images on a laptop that had been calibrated but for some reason the laptop will not allow me to use the Huey pro profile and it is staying on the default. I managed to get home the weekend and look at them on my desk top pc and have to agree that the colours are shocking. I will re do them and re post when i get back home in 2 weejs time.

Cheers, Stew

Regardless of the individual shots, the biggest problem is the inconsistency of the white balance. Look at the blue water in shark6, shark2, shark4 and shark1. Each is quite different, as are the turtle shots. I try to find the best blue water hue and then try to make the rest of the portfolio match it for consistency. Sometimes it requires masking off the critter.