First Stab at Underwater Photos in Kauai

I posted some of these on Rangefinderforum.com and one of the posters there recommended I sign up here and post some photos from my honeymoon in Kaua'i. I had a great, relaxing, romantic time of course. I didn't want to lug around a DSLR so I brought along my Canon s90, but I knew I would be snorkeling, and/or getting into very wet situations so I bought the Canon underwater housing unit to go along with it. I got acquainted with it in my apartment swimming pool before going, but Hawaii was the real test.

This was the first time I've really tried photography under water. Here are some of my shots. There's about 25 of them I want to post. If you have any suggestions or tips, please feel free to comment.

Someone threw chum in the water right in front of me.

Finding the right setting was a very big challenge. Especially since you can only use one of the s90's adjustment rings (the front one, not the back). The camera seems to focus better when set at macro - but if you want to zoom that goes out the window.

I love the sea turtles. They sort of book-ended the trip. I saw them early on, and didn't see them until the last full day I was there.

I bet this old guy has a story to tell.

They're such beautiful creatures, and so graceful under the water.

Some of you may know better than me some of the other aquatic creatures I encountered.

Fish are exceptionally difficult to photograph I found. The camera takes a while to focus and expose. I must've taken hundreds of blurry fish shots.

The above photos are from the Na Pali coast. I went there by Catamaran from the south coast. The following are from Ke'e beach, not far from the Na Pali coast but you have to drive all away around the island to get there.

I know this ill-tempered little guy is called a Picasso Triggerfish.

These things look so cool. This is back in Poipu in the south.

Not far away at the Beach House beach.

There was actual cloud cover in these shots. It makes things a bit easier, and the colors are nice.

I had one last swim with the turtles.

Hi,

Welcome to Wetpixel. Glad to had a good time getting wet on your honeymoon. Normally one might question the sanity of someone who's spending that much time in the water instead of back at the hotel but actually we're kind of use to that type of behavior around here.

Were you shooting RAW with your S90? Great little camera. The reason I ask is that you may be able to improve the color on some of your shots by changing the White Balance. Probably the reason you got better results when the clouds came over. Here is an example. I really like this as one of my favorites in your collection.

Your version and then modified to simulate a more optimum WB. You can do much better if you have the RAW file.

It helps to bring up the blues and hopefully looks more like what you remember.

One other thought, Some of the folks here are cast away on some tropical island someplace and have limited internet access. It makes it hard for them to open a big post with lots of picture files in it. Another option is to share your stuff on a image sharing site like Flickr and then you can put the link to them in the post here with a couple of your favorites. Wetpixel has a Flickr group with over 1800 members and thousands of images to look at and learn from. The link is here if you're interested; http://www.flickr.com/groups/wetpixel/

It's a great way to share your pictures with like minded folks. Most of them probably went diving on their honeymoons too.

Have fun,

Steve

Hi,

I was actually shooting RAW for the last turtle pictures. The top one I had is actually more how I remembered it as being in those turquoise waters. I do have flickr, but I've only uploaded maybe 3 photos thus far.

I did make a post about it on my blog, but it includes a lot of other above sea level photos:

http://formerairline.com/?p=304

I like it when people in-line the images in the post - I hate clicking on links - but I could just be lazy :-)

Great shots for your first time - you were very fortunate as it looks like you had GREAT conditions!

Cheers

James

Thanks James. When I left I was kind of sad that it was the end of snorkeling and underwater photography. Then I realized - duh - that I live next to the beach cities in southern California. I looked it up and apparently there's good snorkeling/diving in Laguna beach. Looks like I may have a new hobby on my hands.