shooting into the open blue

I recently came back from sam's resort in Micronesia when viewing my photos of sharks in the open blue the results where very poor.

Am using the canon rebel XTI in Ikelite housing with two DS-125 strobes on 15" arms set behind the port using the stock 18-55 lens, depth of water 65 feet sharks where anywhere from 15-30 feet away.

I tried a number of setting from AV,M auto with different F stops and speeds but all have the same results poor seems to be allot of blue in the photos, the sharks have lose of true color and when I correct in photo shop they still look unnatural.

Can some one please explain the correct way to shoot subjects at 15 feet of distance in open blue water? what setting or lens one should use.

I recently came back from sam's resort in Micronesia when viewing my photos of sharks in the open blue the results where very poor.

 

Am using the canon rebel XTI in Ikelite housing with two DS-125 strobes on 15" arms set behind the port using the stock 18-55 lens, depth of water 65 feet sharks where anywhere from 15-30 feet away.

 

I tried a number of setting from AV,M auto with different F stops and speeds but all have the same results poor seems to be allot of blue in the photos, the sharks have lose of true color and when I correct in photo shop they still look unnatural.

 

Can some one please explain the correct way to shoot subjects at 15 feet of distance in open blue water? what setting or lens one should use.

I am not the best to person to answer this but I will have a go as I have used the 18-55mm on a 350D.

Personally I would turn the strobes off if the subjects are that distance away, all you will be doing is lighting the water up that is 4ft in front of your strobes.

I found what worked best for me in situations like this was to shoot in M with either manual WB or auto if you are going to shoot RAW and do some WB adjustments in post, depending on depth I would start out at F8 and 1/160 and experiment. Or half press the shutter button when aiming into the blue and then fine tune your exposure to 1 stop below. Something that is hard to do on my 350d is to look at the preview and see if the image looks ok but you can use the histogram to get an idea of exposure. The preview screen is just too small, my shots usually looked good on the screen but when uploaded to a pc the shots seemed over exposed and washed out. I dont know if you are seeing the same as this. Post an image so we can see what you are getting.

Stew

Well the way to shoot from 15 feet away is to get closer.

It is very difficult to shoot from 15 feet away unless you are doing a silhouette shot, or another shot that doesn't require color.

If you must shoot from that distance, hope for clear and shallow water, do not use your strobes, shoot in Raw, push the white balance to the extremes, then use photoshop/lightroom hue adjustment to restore blue to the water.

I am not the best to person to answer this but I will have a go as I have used the 18-55mm on a 350D.

 

Personally I would turn the strobes off if the subjects are that distance away, all you will be doing is lighting the water up that is 4ft in front of your strobes.

I found what worked best for me in situations like this was to shoot in M with either manual WB or auto if you are going to shoot RAW and do some WB adjustments in post, depending on depth I would start out at F8 and 1/160 and experiment. Or half press the shutter button when aiming into the blue and then fine tune your exposure to 1 stop below. Something that is hard to do on my 350d is to look at the preview and see if the image looks ok but you can use the histogram to get an idea of exposure. The preview screen is just too small, my shots usually looked good on the screen but when uploaded to a pc the shots seemed over exposed and washed out. I dont know if you are seeing the same as this. Post an image so we can see what you are getting.

 

Stew

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Hey Stew.

 

sorry for the late reply I live in Indonesia we are 14 hours ahead of you which makes it difficult to reply as one of us are normally in bed asleep.

 

I have attached two pics that look ok but when you adjust in photo shop you get allot of back scatter I now know to turn off strobes because the sharks where to faraway and I was only lighting up the water column which had allot of particles.

 

I thinking about trying magic filters with no flash and adjusting the white balance with white slate at depth of shooting has any body had good results with this??

Well the way to shoot from 15 feet away is to get closer.

 

It is very difficult to shoot from 15 feet away unless you are doing a silhouette shot, or another shot that doesn't require color.

 

If you must shoot from that distance, hope for clear and shallow water, do not use your strobes, shoot in Raw, push the white balance to the extremes, then use photoshop/lightroom hue adjustment to restore blue to the water.

thanks for the info I will give it a try. nice whale sharks on your flicker where were the photos taken??

I dont think there is too much wrong with your shots how they are. I have just had a play with the first one in PS and your strobes have as you said lit all of the suspended particles in the water column. Get your strobes behind your dome and facing outwards if you are going to use them. The 3 things that would improve future shots of this nature would be.

1. Get closer - seriously, get closer then get closer.

2. The 18-55 isnt the best of lenses and you will see a vast improvement in image quality with some better glass.

3. If your camera is like mine then it will suffer from a lot of noise. But, try upping the ISO a tad to see what happens

And of course as previously said, turn the strobes off unless the sharks are right in front of your dome port.

Stew

Use natural light, red filter and manual white balance, and a more pleasing shot would have the shark approaching the camera rather than swimming away from it.

Just my two cents worth.

Cheers