First Picture Post: Fresh Water Fish

[sabbath999 0]

I am a NOOB to underwater photography, here are a few of my attempts at fish in a Missouri quarry (5-10 ft vis) with a Sealife DC1000 and two strobes. They are not that pretty or that good, but you have to start somewhere.

 

Taken over the last couple of weekends.

 

 

 

 

 

[Tjsnapper 0]

Firstly Welcome to the forums. I think you ahve made a great start I know that it is tough in murky conditions and photography is certainly not all about pretty things I think that the first shot is pretty nice. What imaging software did you use?

Tristan

[Alex_Mustard 0]

I like the second one - clean shot of the fish and great sense of place. Nice to see a cichlid on the forums.

 

Those look Lightroom processed to me?

 

Alex

[sabbath999 0]

I like the second one - clean shot of the fish and great sense of place. Nice to see a cichlid on the forums.

 

Those look Lightroom processed to me?

 

Alex

 

iPhoto and Nikon's Capture NX.

 

Not an Adobe kind of a guy.

 

The first one is down about 25 feet and it was getting pretty dark, about 6 feet away from the wall...

 

The second one is actually quite near the surface, shot with the 'el cheapo' Sealife wet lens (which actually isn't that bad) but I had it on wrong so there was a bit of vignetting (which is why I cropped to a DSLR aspect ratio). The fish is a four incher or so, and the total distance to the hole in the background is about a yard more or less... I was about 4 feet down when I shot this, over a shelf of rock and muck, and keeping buoyant with my tank only about a foot below the surface and not screwing the vis was tricky.

 

The first one, I desaturated and burned the background a bit (there was little backscatter), the second one I removed some backscatter and lightened the back half of the fish a bit.

 

The third one, I burned the hole behind the fish to the upper right down to black since it was very ugly looking and distracting, cleaned off some backscatter and also I darkened the rock in front and desaturated it a bit.

 

Number 4 is cropped a bit and I sharpened the fish just a bit in the body and added some contrast.

 

Number 5 is a vertical crop of a horizontal shot. There was a lot of backscatter in the corners, so rather than spend an hour cleaning it up I just used gausian blur and nuked everything except the fish and the log.

 

In case you are wondering, I am an experienced land photographer... I have 20,000 or so of my shots online on my Zoopictures.net website, and then I have my Big Island project (which includes a few of my pathetic first attempts at ocean photography... please don't laugh when you see them)... My Blue Hawaii

[ce4jesus 1]

For a "noob" you did outstanding...especially controlling the backscatter given your vis. I like the first one. Is that a smallmouth Bass?

Edited July 7, 2009 by ce4jesus

[sabbath999 0]

For a "noob" you did outstanding...especially controlling the backscatter given your vis. I like the first one. Is that a smallmouth Bass?

 

Thanks... I am no expert, but I believe it is a perch.

 

Smallmouth bass are harder to take pictures of (I know, I have been trying and failing) since they are pretty shy and very fast.

[Stephen H. 0]

I like the first quite a bit, the second also. In the first I like the lighting. Black background, and a nice focus on the fish!

 

A Great start for tough conditions.

[Vimond 0]

I like the second.

 

Joaquin Gutierrez

[adamhanlon 0]

Great shots!

 

I like the second too-you've managed to balance the lighting on the subject and background well

 

If this is your first attempt.....watch out the pros!

 

Adam

[trygon 3]

Nice shot.

 

Alex, ce4jesus,

It is a green sunfish Lepomis cyanellus.

 

Bryce

[sabbath999 0]

Nice shot.

 

Alex, ce4jesus,

It is a green sunfish Lepomis cyanellus.

 

Bryce

 

Thanks... good to know!