TG6 Photography in Victoria, Australia

Hi everyone, I'd love to share some photos taken during my first year of underwater photography, with my TG6 and Backscatter MF-1 strobe.
These photos were all taken at various shore divesites in Victoria, Australia, from September - November 2022.  It's primarily macro since my current setup isn't conducive for wide angle.
I've sinced moved to Vancouver, Canada, and will hopefully be doing plenty of diving here soon as well! However, I'm also looking forward to diving again in Australia in the near future!
Eventually I would like to experiment more with wide angle, and also potentially upgrade to a MFT system which will help me get the increased image quality & manual control I am craving, while keeping a more compact size.
Any critique and feedback is welcome, I'm here to learn!

Lovely photos, congratulations on the subject matter, composition, light and color! Your photos confirm that the Olympus TG6 is a great camera for UW photography.

Wow! Just goes to prove it’s not the camera, but the photographer behind it. Some lovely images. Nice work. 

Justin,

I'd just keep shooting what you have!

Wonderful creature images

David Haas

6 hours ago, dhaas said:

Justin,

I'd just keep shooting what you have!

Wonderful creature images

David Haas

Thank you very much everyone! Appreciate the kind words!
@dhaas, Haha I am definitely not unhappy with the quality of images from the TG6. But I do crave more pixels!
I also miss a fair amount of shots from being out of focus, so I feel like I'd like a stronger auto-focus system one day, and maybe make use of an EVF to ensure the right spots are really tack sharp

Really nice shots! What do you typically use for f-stop on your macro shots? I'm running a TG-5, so I have a hard time getting tack sharp focus like you have here.

1 hour ago, webcubus said:

Really nice shots! What do you typically use for f-stop on your macro shots? I'm running a TG-5, so I have a hard time getting tack sharp focus like you have here.

Thank you very much webcubus! I'm typically on the f2.8 or f8 (when zoomed out all the way, so it ranges when i'm zoomed in to the max of f18) To be honest, I miss a fair amount of photos from the focus being ever so slightly off, so luck and shooting many shots are big factors. These are just a selection of some my favourite/best shots!

On 4/26/2023 at 7:00 AM, justinchan said:

Thank you very much webcubus! I'm typically on the f2.8 or f8 (when zoomed out all the way, so it ranges when i'm zoomed in to the max of f18) To be honest, I miss a fair amount of photos from the focus being ever so slightly off, so luck and shooting many shots are big factors. These are just a selection of some my favourite/best shots!

Just so you are aware, f8/18 doesn't give you more depth of field, it the same as f2.8/6.3 with a 3 stop neutral density filter.  You may want to use it with flash to get a dark BG, otherwise stick to 2.8/6.3 for most purposes.

Aside from some small cropping difference preferences, I have nothing to suggest you change.

Amazing photos Justin. I'm now jealous of both your skill and the chance to visit this locations .

Very nice.  Have you had a chance to play with the vide?  Thinking of downsizing my  macro loving wife from her big, bulky old school video system.  Auto focus an issue in video?

5 hours ago, NWDiver said:

Very nice.  Have you had a chance to play with the vide?  Thinking of downsizing my  macro loving wife from her big, bulky old school video system.  Auto focus an issue in video?

Hey NWDiver, I haven't played around with video much at all! I don't really have the right lighting set-up for it.
For what it's worth, I have seen some surprisingly good quality videos come out of the TG-6 posted in facebook groups, and they were also in blackwater conditions which made it more impressive to me.

This page has a bunch of TG-6 blackwater videos from Anilao, lit by 2x Sola 3000 video lights.  

https://www.youtube.com/@OlympusTg6ByDennisCorpuz

Pretty good auto focus on a well lit target.