First time photographer photos at Anacapa

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So I got an Ikelite housing for my coolpix point & shoot, jumped on the Spectre on Sunday and clicked away until my batteries died. This is obviously my first time shooting stills underwater and I would greatly appreciate some advice for improvement. the first 3 dives I did solo dives and the last dive my buddy was Shah from Hollywood Divers. Two minutes into the last dive of the day Shah and I ran into an huge Black Sea Bass, 2 minutes later we ran into a pair of them, and on the way back we ran in to two more, each was alone. I think it was a total of 5 but it's impossible to tell. It was overcast all day so light was minimal. I snapped about 300 pics and due to the low light, my shutter speed was really slow, so lots of motion blur.

Please correct me on my species identification if it's incorrect.

Zooanthid Anemones

Does anyone know what this is?

1st Black Sea Bass we saw

Sand Sifting Star

Rose Anemone(even though it doesn't look like the kind of rose anemones I'm used to)

Is this a type of algae?

Pair of Black Sea Bass, do the spots determine sex?

This Navanax Inermis was just floating around, it latched right onto my glove!

This sheephead was about 3' long

My new dive buddy, first time diving with a California Sea Lion(Thanks Mark)

This was the only time I used a light to shoot, I don't have strobes yet so I was holding my light cannon with my left hand while holding the camera with my right.

I love gorgonians

 

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A few more.
Perch and friends sifting through the sand looking for food. I sat in the sand on our first dive for about 10 minutes to see what would come out if I was unnoticed and the world changed. There were hundreds of fish all around me looking for food in the sand.

Black Eyed Goby

Christmas Tree Worms? They look just like Coco worms but smaller and white.

California Sea Hare

Thanks for taking the time out to look at my first time photos.

Billy

 

[orangelion03]

Damn you Billy!! Damn you to heck!!! LOL!!!

Not bad for first time, but you win the prize for those sea bass shots!!! 5 of those big boys?? FANTASTIC!!!!!!

 

[Codyjp]

very cool. the one that you did with your handheld light turned out really well. it is nice to see lighting from a different perspective that you don't normally see from underwater pics. nice job. i think a light will solve the blue colors too. did you Photoshop them at all?

I hope you don't mind but i PS'd this one. i think that may be the rose coral you may have really seen down there. maybe it is to rosy though

 

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Thanks Robert! After you sent me the pics from our Spectre trip, I had to try it out for myself. Now all I need is proper lighting, that might take some time. I still have a shot of a Nudi you took on my desktop at work.

Billy

 

[Empty V]

very cool. the one that you did with your handheld light turned out really well. it is nice to see lighting from a different perspective that you don't normally see from underwater pics. nice job. i think a light will solve the blue colors too. did you Photoshop them at all?

Thanks Cody, I was so excited to get the pics up that I neglected to take them into PS and color correct them, nice work on the one you put up. Which tools do you use and what were the values that you applied to it? I know I'm asking a lot. I usually just color balance my photos, it's quick and easy.

Thanks

Billy

 

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So these are color corrected, the zooanthid photo would have been so much better if I had used my light cannon or a strobe. The available light was so little that my lens was probably way open (no way to adjust on my camera) and my shutter speed was so slow that it felt that pictures were being erased as I was taking them, yay for motion blur.

 

[Codyjp]

i only adjusted levels and contrast. I tried to bring out the reds and subdue the greens and blues. as you know red goes first in water. i can't remember the values though. i am bad at not paying attention. i think the common idea is to use a red filter. Mo2vation has some really neat stuff that is color corrected, maybe you can check with him.

 

[Taxgeek]

Hey Billy!
(So much for our Sunfish dive last weekend huh?)
Great job!
Anyway, two things that may help alot with that camera: see if you can shoot at 400 iso (or "speed" or "Tv" setting with speed at 1/60 or 1/125), and see if it has a "custom white balance" adjustment. The custom white balance will completely remove the tourquoise tint.
Of course strobes work the best, but they're $$$ and a total pain.
Great start!
See you on the Spectre sometime. (I'm going a couple saturdays in August.)
Taxgeek/Susan

 

[Mo2vation]

i only adjusted levels and contrast. I tried to bring out the reds and subdue the greens and blues. as you know red goes first in water. i can't remember the values though. i am bad at not paying attention. i think the common idea is to use a red filter. Mo2vation has some really neat stuff that is color corrected, maybe you can check with him.

Until the GSB pics, all my stuff was non-photoshop. All of the macro stuff is just strobes, DOF, Shutter and in-camera colors. In fact, I've been using the stoopid Olympus Camedia SW for everything until last month. On occasion I'll take down the brightness as I get a little carried away with the strobes (usually from getting too close to the macro subject.)

I just started shooting RAW... WOW what a diff. In RAW, WB isn't printed. That has changed everything, but really only in WA and CFWA. For Macro shots, I do essentially nothing but crop (if needed) and post. Everything else is in the camera.

But thanks!

Billy - next time we're together, lets walk through some stuff.

---
Ken