First day of diving in 4 months.... Photo Critique Wanted

I was able to get out last week for a day of diving over at Catalina Island, California, USA.  This was my first day of diving in the last 4 since my son was born.  It was so nice to get back in the water. Lets hear your Photo Critique please.  There was an open water class of about 6 students on this dive boat and the silt/sand seemed to just get everywhere all day long from them, im not complaining (we all started there) but its defiantly a pain to deal with.

Camera: Olympus EPL10

Lens: Panasonic 8mm fisheye

Lighting: Backscatter MF-1 + Snoot

Images: Photos (Imgur link)

I like the first two - very atmospheric!

Looks like you had your strobe facing pretty much directly down for the shots of the anemone. I'd suggest this is not really ideal. You can see backscatter light up at the sides - and one image has a strong light at the top of the picture.

When there is a lot of sediment in the water (not unusual!) it's better to have the strobe angled in such a way that only the edge of the strobe light touches the subject. In that way you're not lighting water between the camera and the subject with the majority of the strobes output. So, in practice you are almost turning the strobe away from the subject. 

This might help explain it better:

https://www.backscatter.com/reviews/post/How-To-Underwater-Strobe-Flash-Placement

I'd also suggest you have go at cropping the anemone so that it fills more of the frame and will show you the impact of getting way closer.....

Nice to get back in the water, eh? And congratulations on your son!

15 minutes ago, TimG said:

I like the first two - very atmospheric!

Looks like you had your strobe facing pretty much directly down for the shots of the anemone. I'd suggest this is not really ideal. You can see backscatter light up at the sides - and one image has a strong light at the top of the picture.

When there is a lot of sediment in the water (not unusual!) it's better to have the strobe angled in such a way that only the edge of the strobe light touches the subject. In that way you're not lighting water between the camera and the subject with the majority of the strobes output. So, in practice you are almost turning the strobe away from the subject. 

This might help explain it better:

https://www.backscatter.com/reviews/post/How-To-Underwater-Strobe-Flash-Placement

I'd also suggest you have go at cropping the anemone so that it fills more of the frame and will show you the impact of getting way closer.....

Nice to get back in the water, eh? And congratulations on your son!

Hey Tim,

Thanks for the tips and the link Ill defiantly be reading that instead of the aerospace specs I'm supposed to be reviewing today for work ;-).  Oh yeah I forgot how relaxing and soothing the ocean is, it was defiantly a weird feeling (almost a selfish feeling) to be away from the family for the full day.

For the non snooted images (#1 and #2) of the Hopkins Rose, a nudibranch, I had the strobe positioned at about the 12 o'clock position but it was behind the subject pointing back towards me, this was intentional to try to minimize the light hitting the particulates and minimize backscatter (you can see the hot spot of the center of the strobe behind the nudibranch, I have added some text to the photos to help with descriptions). I feel that I read about this technique in a book written but this guy who kind of sounds like he knows what he is talking about, you might have heard of him, Alex Mustard (JK, thanks for all the knowledge you share for free Alex).

Unfortunately, since I was shooting with an 8mm fisheye (on a m4/3) the Nudi #2, #3, #4 are already cropped to 100% so I'm not to sure more cropping would be beneficial. I defiantly want to get back in the water and try out my 60mm macro, I haven't used it underwater just yet.

1 minute ago, Dann-Oh said:

this guy who kind of sounds like he knows what he is talking about, you might have heard of him, Alex Mustard (

Yep, Alex knows what he's talking about for sure. He has an excellent book, "Underwater Photography Masterclass" - and he's a contributor to WP. 

22 hours ago, TimG said:

Yep, Alex knows what he's talking about for sure. He has an excellent book, "Underwater Photography Masterclass" - and he's a contributor to WP. 

Hahaha yeah, that was a tongue in cheek comment but it was probably hard to pick up on the context of the comment via the internet.  I have Read Alex's book at least 2x times fully through.

1 hour ago, Dann-Oh said:

Hahaha yeah, that was a tongue in cheek comment but it was probably hard to pick up on the context of the comment via the internet.  I have Read Alex's book at least 2x times fully through.

LOL, gotcha! I did wonder....