mete_uz1

I think you did a great job within the limits of the 28mm lens. Still I keep thinking how much nicer this would have been with a 15mm or even 20mm lens. You should consider at least the Sea&Sea 16mm conversion lens which screws on to 35mm underwater and provides unexpectedly sharp results.

For me the cropping does not work. The lines lead my eye away from the eye and makes me wonder what is off the frame. Otherwise very well done technically.

I like how the sealion in the background stands out against the light color of the bubble cloud. A slightly lower camera position may have helped the first one stand out better too. Of course I know how fast these guys zip around and leave you no time to think. Very nice catch, especially difficult with a 35/28mm lens and no strobe.

Well done, though I think it seems to be framed a bit too tightly.

Good catch. Moving the camera lower may have helped better separate the cuttlefish from the background.

One or more of the following must apply: bad visibility, subject too far, lens not wide enough. It had lots of potential though.

I am a little surprized at the lighting. It looks like you had a two-strobe set-up and then turned it 90 degrees to the side to get a portrait orientation. Your strobes seem to have been pointed for subjects further away from the camera, so you got the bottom of the fan lit stronger than the middle. The shadow at the top right is also a little distracting. Is there a way to rotate the camera without rotating the strobes? Nice, even lighting on the fan would bring it out more but perhaps it would take the eye away from the fish?

Underwater? very good other than the misplacement.

Very well done. I would consider cropping off the top a little.

Who was it who said something like "if your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't getting close enough"? Never is that more true than underwater. The grouper is almost lost in the picture. Just the very front of it is in the effective strobe distance. I like the composition with the rocks framing the picture. If the fish kept coming closer to you maybe who could have waited a bit longer.

 

With your present gear, you can learn a lot about underwater photography. But I am afraid impressive and therefore motivating results will be few and far between until you can invest in more capable equipment.

I wish the jellyfish was further away from the kelp so that you could show more of kelp's texture in the background.

Excellent. This is how it's done. This is a much photographed subject but still yours has something fresh about it.

I like seeing the background. It also distinguishes this shot from the many tight shots of clown fish on anemonies. Are you at the closest focus distance of your gear? Maybe you can hightight the foreground with some fill flash. The warmer colors in the foreground would then draw the eye better. Ideally you would use a wider lens, get closer to the subject and point a seperate strobe (not on camera) slightly down. This would make the anemony and the fish bigger, and the highlight the foreground for two reasons: You are directing the light more downward, and the ratio of distances to background and to subject is increased. The latter sounds more complicated than it is. If your subect is 2 feet from the background, if you can shoot the subject from 2 feet, the background is twice as distant to the strobe than the subject and it will receive 1/4 the light intensity. If you can not get closer than 4 feet to the subject the distances are 4 and 6 feet. The square law gives a ratio of about 1/2.

I'm not very familiar with Sealife but it seems like you have a 35mm or longer lens. It is very difficult to do near-far type pictures with that. This is often called close focus wide angle (CFWA) and you really need a wide angle lens as the name implies. Unfortunately one is very much limited by gear in underwater photography.

The best part of underwater photography is that you have 3D control over camera placement. I think a different camera angle was really called for in this picture. Quite a few people have said that downward angles rarely result in a very good picture. Another thing to keep in mind is that it is usually more interesting to have the subject face toward the camera rather than away from it. This implies an encounter and feels more dramatic than seeing the fish swims away.

 

Now I will go ahead and contradict what I said earlier about 3D: People are still mentally bound to a 2D plane and shooting subjects from their eye level is often the most attention grabbing camera angle.

I am with Bob on this. Don't be discouraged though. It is not bad to keep your sights on the top rung as long as you remember it takes many steps to get there. How committed are you? Dave Doubilet shoots more film in a day than I do in a whole year underwater. He probably also dives 10 times as many days in a year. To take on the giants you need to be at least as committed. If you are serious about this, probably the fastest way to get your pictures in the old Geographic is to find an esoteric subject, maintain a religious focus and own that niche.

Good composition. Looks a bit dark on my monitor but that could be just my monitor.