Damselfish
Posted 15 January 2017 - 09:31 AM
Taken in Malta with a d7200, 18-55 kit lense and Meikon housing, using a video light! (on the way back from a wreck dive i was filming, left my strobe in the apartment)
Heavily vignetted to try and get rid of as much background as I could.
Any tips for shooting things in grass, or vegetation? What would you have done differently, and how can I improve it for next time I see a sea horse?
Wolf Eel
Posted 20 March 2017 - 04:25 PM
Jason,
I have many similar shots. There are a couple of things you can try. One is shooting a snoot to try to light only the seahorse. Also try strobe positioning to focus light on the target and not as much on the background. I have never tried it, but I have heard of people putting a piece of plastic or such behind to get a white or black background, but a lot of times that is limited by where your subject is and you obviously want to be careful not to stress the critters out too much as it can kill them.
Corby
Tiger Shark
Posted 21 March 2017 - 07:16 AM
That's a nice sharp shot with good use of DOF to bring the subject out against the background. Given it was your first dive with the camera, you have good reason to be happy! Two suggestions:
First, depending on the relative positions of subject and background, using only one light, placing the light off to one side might throw a little shadow behind the subject and improve isolation. In this shot could you have placed the light lower and to the left or right, using the seahorse's shadow to shade some of the background?
Second, I don't like the subject's orientation, even if that is what they actually do most of the time. Since it's hard to ask a seahorse to sit up nicely, and you can wait forever for them to think of doing so on their own, maybe backing off a little to leave room to rotate and crop the image slightly would make for a more eye-pleasing pose. I am trying to make myself back off more often for just this reason
Edited by troporobo, 21 March 2017 - 10:28 PM.
