Pictures from Catalina

Dove this weekend on the Magician. Here are my pictures from my trip out on the Magician:

Catalina 022512

Great pictures! Number 4 and 5 are my favorite. How was the Magician to dive off of? I live in San Diego area and looking for outfits to go to Catalinal with...

observations:

-probably shot with one strobe w/a diffuser

-no backscatter (good job in temperate water)

my opinions:

good: 5 (lighting, composition) and 2 (lighting, composition, good negative space: not sea barf; cropped too tight: more space in from of fish, back edge of gill cover cropped)

neutral: 4(good detail, lighting, & negative space; form of nudi eggs: hunt for better spirals; cropped too tight)

things to work on: 3(good detail on navanax face/head, kind of a C-curve; very distracting negative space: too much sea barf), 1(distracting foreground, no space in front of fish), 6(pogo stick shot* on so-so negative space)

*pogo stick shot = camera pointed straight down on subject (I like to shoot tube anemones out on the sand flats and get the tentacles flowing in the current/surge)

get low, get close, get closer, shoot up (this separates your subject from the sea barf background)

eye level or slightly below your subject (make it a conversation)

search for good background first; then look for subjects on that background

crop in the viewfinder, not in the computer (I'm kind of old school. I prefer the 35mm aspect ratio instead of freeform cropping.)

take care,

Chris

Great pictures! Number 4 and 5 are my favorite. How was the Magician to dive off of? I live in San Diego area and looking for outfits to go to Catalinal with...

Ty for the compliments. Well the Magician is the only boat I really like to dive from here in the LA area. Capt. Jerry runs a wonderful boat. They have a partial membrane system so you do not need a clean tank to get Nitrox. The only thing is he does not run many open boats. If you can get on a Friday boat then I would try and do that. Most of his weekend boats are booked with Sports Chalet. He does have an open boat this Saturday.