Need feedback: newbie with new equipment

So, I am new to UW photography and would like to check if I am on the right track with the new rig. I am back from Cozumel where I spent a few days playing with the camera. The pic below is from the C-53 wreck, that houses a school of glass fish. In more details:

- new UW photo aficionado, coming from basic point and shoot & no strobe to full rig

- new rig: OMD-EM5 with Oly housing, 2 ULCS 5' arms and 2 YSD1 with fiber optic connection

- for this picture, 100 deg diffuser on strobes, Manual mode with strobes in TTL mode and flash in Fill-in mode, 1/250, F4, Auto WB, vivid color, JPG and RAW (this pic is a compressed version of the JPG so no correction was made from RAW)

Questions:

- obviously, how good / bad is the pic, but more importantly, what suggestions for improvement?

- I suspect I probably should have used a slower shutter speed and smaller aperture to increase depth of field.....or maybe not?

- since I have not touched the raw file, what adjustments should I make in Olympus viewer or LR?

Thanks you, more pics coming tomorrow

In general, it's not a bad shot. For a first outing with a new rig, it's great. Congratulations.

First the good: Composition is good, exposure is well balanced between the strobe-lit foreground and ambient background, and no backscatter so your lighting setup is spot on. To get any more of the wreck interior would take off-camera lights. Then the not so good. Edges and corners are really soft. What lens / port did you use? A smaller aperture may help. Also, I have come to abhor the Olympus "vivid" setting, it just never looks natural. (full disclosure - I have the same camera and used the same settings for a long time)

Suggestions: In dim lighting, bump the ISO and drop the shutter speed (the strobes control motion anyway) to increase DoF. A little grain is better than motion blur, and the E-M5 produces useable images at higher ISO anyway (in my experience, up to 800 and just maybe one more stop, under water). Don't use camera JPEG settings, shoot RAW and adjust later. With this one, you should be able to pull out some shadow detail and maybe add a little contrast and saturation (hard to know when looking only at this JPEG)

Good luck and have fun!

First of all, thank you for the feedback, it is exactly what I was looking for. To answer questions:

I used the kit 14-42 at 14mm, with the standard flat port. I am guessing using 17mm or longer would have helped.

Vivid setting: I shoot double files: Raw (for post treatment) and JPEG to be able to give a quick preview to my fellow divers during the trip. So for a quick JPEG, you would recommend Natural setting?

Raw treatment: how would you recommend pulling better shadow details...just increase contrast a little in Oly viewer?

I am not familiar with Oly viewer so can't help you there, sorry. Just adding contrast to that image is likely to lose the shadows, I think. In Lightroom there are sliders for exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks; these are the typical order I will make adjustments. If you have other software available see what it offers