Critique a beginners photos

I sought some advice a few weeks back on whether I should get a WAL or second strobe, I ended up going with a UWL-04 fisheye lens. I eventually will get a second more powerful strobe, but I really like my setup now and have plenty of room to improve my skills.

I like that the WAL allows me to fit more in the picture since I prefer to shoot scenes vs macro but also get close enough that the picture looks ok. It's helping me realize how important getting close to the subject is underwater. I've got a lot to learn, like when to use the strobe and when not too and of course continue improving dive skills necessary for taking good photos. When visibility is poor due to particles stirred up by surge as an example, I need to remember to turn my strobe off as backscatter is a big problem. Also, with more practice I can improve my feel for when to use the strobe based on the scene and distance from foreground and also just developing a feel for forming a good scene.

Anyway, I've included a few pictures from my trip taken with my olympus tg-4 and uwl-04 lens. All critiques, tips, suggestions etc are welcome. My best pictures were definitely from the dives with less surge and better visibility, which I suppose makes sense. Any tips on how to deal with less than stellar conditions is appreciated.

The whole album https://www.flickr.com/photos/skeptic14/albums/72157668287055522

Thanks for all tips and critiques.

if it your first time its perfect

Thanks, I have less than 20 dives with the camera and less than 10 with the lens. I was pretty happy with how some of them from last trip came out, still plenty of room for improvement though.

Just read about Jim Church UW Photography school, will definitely look into doing that as a LoB, sounds really fun and great chance to hone skills.

No complaints here. The first photo does look like the front of the turtle was flash illuminated and the back end was lit by ambient light.
That could be deliberate or accidental. At least you didn't try to balance the lighting difference and get a pink turtle head.
Sometimes beginners luck can be passed off as genius.

A second strobe is on my list next, that should help produce a bit more evenly distributed lighting and allow more options for positioning the strobes which might help shots like the top one.

I'm definitely in the same newbie category, so I think these images are great! The third one really catches my attention, with the reef and school of fish.. the sun rays in the water really make it pop. As a more experienced land photographer, I'd like to politely suggest some gentle cropping here and there? In the fourth image (with the pair of turtles.. I really like this one too!), if the left hand side of the image was cropped off just to edge of where the reds/pinks are showing up, that would help to draw the eye on to your two subjects. Also, that dark shadow band at the bottom is an eye catcher as well. Just some food for thought anyway.

Not bad for someone starting out! I think going for the wide angle lens vs. a second strobe was a good decision based on your preference for wider scenes. I think you'll find that with a compact like the TG-4, a single strobe is sufficiently powerful to light your foreground subjects IF you are sufficiently close to them. So.. obey the number one rule of underwater photography -- get close, and then get closer! No strobe is going to be effective if your subject is more than a meter or so away. Getting close to your subject will also help reduce backscatter. If you're consistently getting 30cm or so away from your subject and still seeing unacceptable levels of backscatter, it may be that the conditions are simply not condusive to wide-angle photography. I've found that good visibility is a key ingredient to shooting wide-angle underwater. If there's too many particles in the water, you're better off switching to macro photography or researching more advanced lighting techniques like snooting. The books I recommend below address this in much greater detail.

I think some tuition time, and especially time in the water with a good underwater photographer who can mentor you would be a valuable step in improving your photography further. There are many great educators out there--many of them active in these forums--who offer seminars and photographic workshops, often in locations full of great photographic opportunities and with other divers of the same mindset.

Another resource that has helped me tremendously in improving my underwater photography technique and may help you as well are in-depth books on the subject. Three I can recommend in particular:

The Underwater Photographer, by Martin Edge

Underwater Photography Masterclass, by Alex Mustard, and

Underwater Photography, by Tobias Friedrick

For the cost of a few dives, I think those three books are a no-brainer to any aspiring underwater photographer's development.

For wide-angle photography in particular, you'll find that balancing the ambient light (or background) exposure with the strobe light (foreground exposure) is very important in creating pleasing, color-rich images. You can start my trying to shoot with your strobe in manual mode rather than TTL to control the amount of flash exposure for the foreground. Controlling the ambient light exposure will be a little tricky with the TG-4 since you do not have full manual controls over the exposure, but you can try using the exposure compensation feature. Try underexposing by 1 stop or so to let in less ambient light, while setting the manual power on the strobe high enough to bring color to your foreground subjects without overexposing it. The beauty of digital photography is that you can take a shot, review it, and adjust your settings as necessary then take another shot -- this shoot, review, adjust, shoot again workflow is a great way to improve.

Good luck, and keep shooting!

Totally agree with dreifish on the books.

One other thought I don't think has been mentioned, is the Rule of Thirds. While I would not suggest anyone should be hidebound by rules, it's worth sometimes baring this in mind. A couple of the pics, the turtles especially, could look more imposing if the eye was closer to the intersection of the third lines. If you compare turtle 2 with turtle 3, I'd suggest 3 works better because of the positioning of the head in the image. More dramatic. And meets the Rule of Thirds theory.

I usually think it's a rule worth thinking about in composition - if only to dismiss it. It works really well though in animal photog.

On your shot with a diver, not easy I appreciate, but well worth trying to shoot with the diver coming towards you rather than away. Get the face in the shot, ideally a bubble stream and it gives the image context and a human element.

Counsels of perfection. Doncha love 'em!

Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback.

IcyMike, I like your suggestion on cropping of #4. That dark band at the bottom left really does divert the eye from the turtles now that you mention it.

Dreifish, I am becoming more aware of that #1 rule, proximity! When I started I would be 5-10 ft from stuff and of course that was really bad, even now I find I need to remind myself that getting another foot closer might be a good idea. The fisheye lens definitely helped because there is still a nice scene in the image even when that close.

Also, good suggestion on switching to macro in poor conditions. I dove some 10ft vis last week and took my strobe diffuser for the first time (I know probably silly I haven't been using it) and that seemed to have helped some maybe... but also just getting even closer helped. What do most people do if they decide to remove their WAL wet lens to stow it mid dive? Or I guess I could shoot macro with it still on, just zoom a bit.

I will take a look at those books and also, I like the idea of booking a uw photography trip/workshop.

TimG, thanks for the tips, I'll research rule of thirds, but could you elaborate a bit more on what you mean about the eye being closer to the intersection of the third line?

Thanks again everyone for the feedback!

edit----------------

I read several explanations with images on the rule of thirds, very useful for future composition of photos.

Hi Skeptic 14

Sorry I didn't spell it out just in case I was teaching you how to suck eggs......

The Rule of Thirds, as you will have seen from your reading, draws two imaginary lines across the picture and two down the picture. This divides the image into thirds both vertically and horizontally.

If you image these lines will intersect in 4 places: twice to the left of the image, twice to the right. The approx rule of thumb is to try and place a key part of the image - the part you want to draw most attention to - on one of those intersecting points. If you are shooting critters, place the eye, if you can (!) on one of those imaginary intersections. Whether you use the top intersection of the bottom will create slightly different effects. Using the left or right intersections will create the impression of the critter entering or leaving the image.

I've even heard it said that if you want something to "enter" the image for a western reader you use the left hand intersections whereas if you are creating something for people who read from right to left, you use the right hand ones!

It's definitely worth a try and you will see how it creates impact. Once you've got the hang of it, you definitely won't be placing subjects in the centre of the frame......

Hope that explains it. If it doesn't, just say and I'll try and produce some illustrations.

Thanks TimG, very similar to what I read after your first post drawing attention to the theory, I like the idea of composing it so the subject is entering or exiting the image.

Thanks TimG, very similar to what I read after your first post drawing attention to the theory, I like the idea of composing it so the subject is entering or exiting the image.

Yep, it does work well