8 replies to this topic

[MortenHansen]

First of all I would like to quickly introduce myself as this will be my first post here on Wetpixel. My name is Morten, was born in the cold waters of Denmark but now I live, work and dive in Bali. I have been shooting compacts for a few years and have now purchased a 7D in an Aquatica housing (named "black betty") I am loving the camera and the endless creative possibilities, but I would love to have a little bit of feedback from all of you photo-geeks out there!

This is a bunch of photos that I took on my first 10 dives with the new camera.

Equipment used was the 7D, a 100mm USM, a T10-17 and 2xInon strobes

And here are the photos!


Please be honest, any feedback would be much appreciated!

Morten.

Edited by MortenHansen, 29 March 2012 - 03:34 PM.

[acuevas]

I like the colors of the nudi and how sharps are the horns, but the composition I think can be improved.
If you put the nudi in a diagonal position and maybe aligning yourself to eye level with the subject, this shot could be really nice.

This is just an example about the diagonal idea:

[Steve Williams]

Hi Morten,
Welcome to Wetpixel! We love to see nice images and yours centainly qualify. I envy you being able to dive Bali all the time, doesn't get any better.

You clearly have a great eye and I'm loving the images. I'm curious what program you're using to process your images. A couple of the macros like the Flabbelina could be improved with a little more work. They look a shade dark on my screen and not as sharp as they could be. The 7D also really benefits from increasing the contrast in the midtones (Lightroom calls it Clarity) and a little practise with the sharpening tools.

From the shooting aspect I think you could get away with being a little closer to your subjects in the W/A shots. Especially with the 10-17, it can handle it.

Thanks for sharing with us,
Steve

[JKrumsick]

I think a lot of those are really fantastic.

The big problem I see is exposure (as Steve mentioned) - a lot of them are too dark.

I would increase the flash of the strobes (the optical TTL works really well but you may prefer manual). You seem to be shooting very open (slow shutter speed and wide apertures). When you have strobes, remember this isn't always necessary...

Cheers!

[MortenHansen]

First of all, thank you for the replies, that went a lot quicker than I expected!

Andres, I see your point, a diagonal composition does look better on that nudie- there is something I can bring with me next time I go below! Thank you!

Steve, thanks a lot for the nice comments.

For processing I use Photoshop CS5, I will have a look at the midtone contast, Im sure it has a different name on CS5 but I should be able to find it somewhere, will be interesting to play around with! Until now I have not been doing a lot of post-processing, I normally just adjust the exposure half a stop if needed and if there is any backscatter I remove it with the patch tool, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to play around a bit!



Here I tried to play around with the sharpening tool in photoshop- which one do you prefer?

Pictures with and without sharpening


Regarding the exposure, I think your'e right, a few of the shots should have been a little brighter, but i might have a theory, do you mind me asking if your'e on an apple computer or on a PC? Reason I'm asking is that I developed a bunch of my "old" G11 photos to hang up in our diving-center, and they also all came out looking underexposed compared to what I see on my screen (mac). I thought maybe the screen on the mac is brighter and therefore I purposely underexpose them in post processing. For sure I will try to check it out on my office-computer (PC) later on today to see if it could have something to do with it!

Once again, thanks for the input, its awesome with a bit of an outside view on my photos!
Morten.

[Steve Williams]

I'm liking the sharpened version. The real test for me is how it looks in the print.

There is no Clarity slider in PS but there is one in Adobe Camera RAW. There is a way to do pretty much the same thing LR does it's just a six or seven step process in PS. Once you see if you like it you can create an action or you could just get a copy of Lightroom.


Have fun,
Steve

[MortenHansen]

Thanks for the reply!
I've had a little bit of a go with the clarity slider in adobe raw - always do raw anyways so it wouldn't really be any extra effort to add a bit of clarity, it does give a nice sharp look to the pictures, but somehow it feels a little bit like cheating, but in this case I guess I can actually use the term "but everyone else is doing it!"

I also found out that my pictures look different on different computer screens (exposure), which I never really thought about, so I think you're right Steve, its all about how it looks developed then..

[Steve Williams]

I think that may be a common misconception of people who are new to DSLR's. It's not cheating to process RAW files, it's required by definition, that's why they call them RAW. I'm very comfortable "processing" images for Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation, and Color tone. The same variables that make up the in camera picture style options. Throw in the other adjustments that the camera lets you control like white balance and exposure and I'm perfectly comfortable. When you start adding mermaids I get concerned.

A common mistake for new folks is to go too far with the adjustments that commonly results in over saturated, unreal looking pictures. Recommend that you try pulling a slider to where you think it looks good than back it off a touch.

There is a great thread on "processing" where this conversation has been going on recently you may want to check out. Lots of folks have different opinions.

Cheers,
Steve

[MortenHansen]

Haha, don't worry, you wont be seeing mermaids in my pictures any time soon! Even though that probably would be able to win us a competition or two!

I always try to get the pictures as good as possible in camera, as I'm sure you do, for me that's part of the fun of underwater photography- you could call me a romantic I guess, but for sure I see your point that RAW is sort of like undeveloped film, you gotta tweak it here and there to get the best out of it.

Thanks for the link, I will have a read through that for sure!