Heres a couple images i thought could have been better, am looking for any constructive criticism. This was my first or second dive where im shooting in manual mode and I am just wrapping my head around shooting at smaller apertures and quicker shutter speeds to get better quality macro shots. I am only using one strobe and a useless focus light, I have now purchased 2 better strobes and a SOLA 600 so that should help me improve. All images taken on the Tulamben, Liberty wreck in Bali.
All photos taken at F9, 1/100, ISO 400, 0 EV, pattern metering, AWB, using a canon 500D, sea and sea RDX 450 housing, canon 60mm with a standard flat dome port for the RDX housing and one sea and sea YS-27 strobe.
Click to view attachment
I was wondering if shooting at a higher F stop and or quicker shutter speed would have made all the fin tips more crisp? I did crop this image and clean up some particles. It was not an easy shot to get as I was inside a wreck hovering, shooting through a sea fan, so overall I am happy with it but would have liked to have gotten all the fins in perfect focus. What effect would adjusting the ISO down to 100 or 200 have on this image? I was also wondering if using my macro 60mm in my dome port would have made this easier to get, in order to get the full length of the pipefish in frame I had to be pretty far away, or would I be better of using the CFWA method with my tokina 10-17mm?
Click to view attachment
Again I think I should have shot at a higher F stop and or shutter speed to get a darker background and better colors out of this somewhat bland subject, what do you think? I did slightly crop this one.
Click to view attachment
Im not very happy with my composition in this one, but the eyes is in sharp focus (at least on my computer it appears to be) and im happy with the exposure, should I be, or is it too dark? This image was not edited in anyway.
Thanks for any tips!
Fontaine
Full Version: First time shooting manual
hi Fontaine,
looks good - i am hoping to get over to bali early next year sounds like the diving there is pretty good.
i would have gone for an aperture of 16 or 22 or maybe 11 to make sure that i increased the depth of field to get everyhting sharp and perhaps 1/125 - 1/180 (?) to help freeze motion a little more. the higher shutter speed would have probably help give a complete black background on the pipefish.
i pretty much always use ISO of 200 and lower.
just my two pence worth - hope it helps.
looks good - i am hoping to get over to bali early next year sounds like the diving there is pretty good.
i would have gone for an aperture of 16 or 22 or maybe 11 to make sure that i increased the depth of field to get everyhting sharp and perhaps 1/125 - 1/180 (?) to help freeze motion a little more. the higher shutter speed would have probably help give a complete black background on the pipefish.
i pretty much always use ISO of 200 and lower.
just my two pence worth - hope it helps.
Thanks Alistair!
Appreciate the info, I can not wait to get back to Bali and get some more practice, and test out my new WA setup
Appreciate the info, I can not wait to get back to Bali and get some more practice, and test out my new WA setup
I know this post is 2 months old but hoping someone could chime in. Why would we want to use an ISO of 200 or lower? Just looking to get an understanding of this as I would have assumed underwater we would need to be at 400-800. Thanks.
QUOTE (Alastair @ Oct 4 2011, 11:12 PM) 
hi Fontaine,
looks good - i am hoping to get over to bali early next year sounds like the diving there is pretty good.
i would have gone for an aperture of 16 or 22 or maybe 11 to make sure that i increased the depth of field to get everyhting sharp and perhaps 1/125 - 1/180 (?) to help freeze motion a little more. the higher shutter speed would have probably help give a complete black background on the pipefish.
i pretty much always use ISO of 200 and lower.
just my two pence worth - hope it helps.
looks good - i am hoping to get over to bali early next year sounds like the diving there is pretty good.
i would have gone for an aperture of 16 or 22 or maybe 11 to make sure that i increased the depth of field to get everyhting sharp and perhaps 1/125 - 1/180 (?) to help freeze motion a little more. the higher shutter speed would have probably help give a complete black background on the pipefish.
i pretty much always use ISO of 200 and lower.
just my two pence worth - hope it helps.
The main reason for the lower ISO range is to reduce the noise in the image, as much as possible anyway. As everyone knows, photography, in terms of settings like aperture, shutter speed and ISO, is all about compromise - but in this case, why compromise with the ISO if you don't have to? The idea for most situations underwater is to make your strobe(s) work hard enough that you can choose the aperture and shutter speed you want, and not have to compromise... too much.
If you shoot at a lower ISO (for a less noisy image), pick the aperture best suited to the subject or framing and then pick the best shutter speed given the image you want, ideally then the strobe(s) should be able to add enough light to make your image.
However, there are plenty of situations where higher ISO settings are needed to make an image, shooting using only the available light, or shooting something so large that it goes beyond what is practical to light with camera/housing fixed strobes, for example. In those cases the image/noise trade-off is part of the thought-process.
Hope that helps.
Lee
If you shoot at a lower ISO (for a less noisy image), pick the aperture best suited to the subject or framing and then pick the best shutter speed given the image you want, ideally then the strobe(s) should be able to add enough light to make your image.
However, there are plenty of situations where higher ISO settings are needed to make an image, shooting using only the available light, or shooting something so large that it goes beyond what is practical to light with camera/housing fixed strobes, for example. In those cases the image/noise trade-off is part of the thought-process.
Hope that helps.
Lee
Thank you for your answer.
QUOTE (newmanl @ Dec 5 2011, 03:45 PM)
The main reason for the lower ISO range is to reduce the noise in the image, as much as possible anyway. As everyone knows, photography, in terms of settings like aperture, shutter speed and ISO, is all about compromise - but in this case, why compromise with the ISO if you don't have to? The idea for most situations underwater is to make your strobe(s) work hard enough that you can choose the aperture and shutter speed you want, and not have to compromise... too much.
If you shoot at a lower ISO (for a less noisy image), pick the aperture best suited to the subject or framing and then pick the best shutter speed given the image you want, ideally then the strobe(s) should be able to add enough light to make your image.
However, there are plenty of situations where higher ISO settings are needed to make an image, shooting using only the available light, or shooting something so large that it goes beyond what is practical to light with camera/housing fixed strobes, for example. In those cases the image/noise trade-off is part of the thought-process.
Hope that helps.
Lee
If you shoot at a lower ISO (for a less noisy image), pick the aperture best suited to the subject or framing and then pick the best shutter speed given the image you want, ideally then the strobe(s) should be able to add enough light to make your image.
However, there are plenty of situations where higher ISO settings are needed to make an image, shooting using only the available light, or shooting something so large that it goes beyond what is practical to light with camera/housing fixed strobes, for example. In those cases the image/noise trade-off is part of the thought-process.
Hope that helps.
Lee
Since the post was brought back to life I thought I would add an image that I am proud of that I somehow overlooked from this same dive 
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
I really like this last pic you just posted. Nice composition. You might consider cropping the bottom off it off a little and see what happens.
Good luck with everything and looking forward to seeing more in the future - Diverpam
Good luck with everything and looking forward to seeing more in the future - Diverpam
Saw your post of this last image in best of 2011 - really like the crop you did on it. Happy diving - Pam
QUOTE (DiverPam @ Dec 17 2011, 12:59 AM)
Saw your post of this last image in best of 2011 - really like the crop you did on it. Happy diving - Pam
Thanks very much for the comments Pam, really appreciate it!!! And thanks for the advice on the cropping!
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