Monterey Shootout winners...

Thought I would share my winners in the Monterey Shootout that took place this weekend. I managed to take first and second place in the novice digital traditional category, and a third place in the novice digital unrestricted category. Won a $1,000 Sea & Sea certificate at Backscatter! yay! Please let me know what you all think...

1st Place Traditional

2nd Place Traditional

3rd Place Unrestricted

Brilliant!

Beautiful composition.

What kind of camera was this and how did you choose the exposure?

Very nice shots

Congratulations on prize !

I loved all 3 of them!

congratulations :!:

Beautiful shots. Congrats.

I was using an Olympus 3030Z in a Tetra housing, with two Ikelite 105 Nikonos substrobes. I kind of get used to choosing the exposure just by looking at the visibility, depending on how green and dark it is.. like when its pea soup I use 1/40-1/50, but I was using 1/80-1/100 that day because it wasn't quite pea soup :-) But yeh, lots of diving is the key to knowing which exposure to shoot right off the bat. Oh yeh and I was using the Tetra wetmate 100mm wide angle lens, which is just an awesome lens.

Nice job........shows once again that it's the Indian, not the arrow

Karl

I really like the first one. Congratulations, a deserved win.

Wasn't that a fun weekend? I really like the compo of your 1st place shot. Excellent balance of fore and aft lighting.

Here are the pics that I entered that "won" something:

Novice Traditional - Honorable Mention

Novice Traditional - Honorable Mention

Novice Unlimited - Honorable Mention

Novice Unlimited - 2nd Place

gear: Canon S50 w/ Canon housing, single Sea&Sea YS90 dx

Hope that'll hold up for next year's "Advanced" category!

.mike

Hope this isn't too much of a thread hijack, but I have never gotten around to contests, and find myself confused by the categories mentioned here.

traditional?

unlimited?

unrestricted?

What do these mean? Or should I say, what differentiated these categories and the requirements for each?

TIA

What do these mean? Or should I say, what differentiated these categories and the requirements for each?

It all depends on the rules for the particular contest. In this one there were 2 digital categories: Traditional and Unrestricted. Traditional meant you couldn't do anything to alter the image beyond basic color correction. Unrestricted meant you could edit to you heart's content (ie remove backscatter, crop, clone, go wild with special effects, whatever).

http://theshootout.org/monterey/categories/index.htm

Clinton

Oops. Sorry. I meant "Unrestricted".

Nice shots! Very well composed and exposed. Which dive sites had such beautiful kelp forests?

I was at Lovers' Cove that day. I had also been there doing drift kelp surveys 2 days before and the viz was pretty nice, so I decided to go for it since I had heard that Stillwater and Carmel bay had been pea soup on Friday... although green can make for some awesome shots... this one is my fav from MacAbee...

Hey chilipino nice red octo, tough shot, did you dabble in the sand flats for that one? I always get spooked in sand flats, so empty.. and cuz thats where I get dive bombed by seals.

Both the octo and the younger wolfie were at Aumentos. The octo tried to pose as one of the sea stars that were devouring a dead mola. I didn't see the octo until it started to move