BaddPix Gallery

I've taken about 12,000 photos with my Nikon Coolpix 5000

but I feel that the image quality has reached a plateau.

I would be really grateful for any advice / critique/ suggestions.

Here are:

my favorite images

my last 100 dives with a few photos per dive.

These are straight off the camera without any image manipulation.

The typical visibility in my home waters (southern

Western Australia) is 15-30 feet.

Thanks

Adrian Baddeley [baddpix]

Adrian,

There are some really nice looking Macro shots there, but a lot of inconsistent results especially for a list of favourites that long. I know that with a coolpix, just like my Olympus you get shutter lag which can disadvatage you on framing a subject sometimes, but the biggest thing that stood out with your photos for me was the great colours you had in your macro, and then the lack of colour in your wide angle.

I would say work on your wide angle some more, try to get rid of the inconsistency and bring out some colour and get rid of the washed out blues. Make the water a nice rich blue colour and get some sunballs going on, then light your main subject with your strobe to bring out the full colour of the subject within roughly 4ft of you.

Your Macro's are nice, and the WA would be great if they were more colourfull.

Bettering your equipment is an interesting topic round here, some people say you have to have technique to make a good photo, and yet others have proven that when they get a more expensive setup their photos improve leaps and bounds on their own.

If you have the money why not improve your equipment if thats what you want to do, if you're just having fun and want something to test you then i'd say try more things with your WA and improve those images.

my lowely opinion.

Happy Snapping

Giles

Thanks a lot for the valuable advice Giles. I will give it a try.

I have been using mostly the auto exposure program for the wide angle shots

and manual exposure for the macro. :oops: So I will try doing the wide angle manually, getting an exposure reading for the background, underexposing one stop relative to that (presumably this is how to get more saturated blue in the background??) and then adjusting the strobe power to get the correct illumination of the foreground.

About upgrading equipment - it is tempting to go out and buy a digital SLR

but I really want to improve my skills first

(until a flood gives me the excuse to upgrade!)

thanks again

Adrian

I am getting ready to upgrade myself.

I have had a D60 for over a year and a half now, feeling very comfortable with it, and have used it for land photography lots including magazine articles and weddings. My Olympus set up is needing a full service now, and then I will try to sell it again. It has serverd me well and has taken photos that have won competitions and published articles in magazines as well as hopefully a calendar soon, but as Alex Mustard likes to keep telling me .. it wasn't really meant for the use I put it through. Even though I look after it very well, it has probably taken more photos than it was ever meant to in such a short period of time.

I am looking at D60 setups, and may have a great deal on a Sea and Sea unless someone throws something better at me. the D60 should be perfect for in water, and then maybe i can get a new body for land too

If you want to upgrade I would get the camera for land use for a little bit first as it is a big expense but you can always make your decision based upon equipment availble to house it as well.

And i think your decision to manually do wide angle is a great one .. After i learnt how to use the camera and strobe manually I haven't looked back .. nothing is taken with auto settings apart from black and whit eon occasion.