Here's the thing about underwater photography

[Puffer Fish]

I was being a bit of a "puriist" resisting doing anything to my pictures... then I decided I was being silly. I don't have a strobe, I have a very cheap 5 year old camera.

For a number of reasons.. some financial but mostly physical.. I will never buy an expensive camera and strobe to compensate for backscatter and light loss.

I have recently started using Post processing to remove back scatter and compensate for my inability to shoot in RAW and make complex adjustments.

I spent time with someone showing me how to use PS. I discovered that we were seeing things differently and trying to make different "statements" with the pictures we were playing with. He wanted to turn them into "portraits of critters"

I wanted to tell stories. I had a picture of a very small moray in some growth. I took the picture thinking.. "Look at that tiny moray.. how huge the world is that it is trying to survive in! Look at the struggle for survival." He cropped it to create the portrait of the moray.. but you lost the size perspective and the purpose of the shot.. for me.

I take pictures to share with those who don't get the privilege of enjoying the underwater world. I take pictures to remember and enjoy my dives when I can not dive. I take pictures to capture the struggle of survival. I love to capture unusual moments and subjects.

Most importantly.. I take pictures to enjoy and if someone else enjoys them, that is a bonus but not the goal. I think it is about enjoying what you are doing .. trying to do it better measured against your own objective. Restricting how you achieve it because of someone else's bias is just plain silly!

Taking pictures you like, and delivering the story you want to tell should be what everyone tries to do....Minor White and Ansel Adams would have bowed to your wisdom...so let me do that in their place...well done!!!!

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Wow! A lot of differing views here.

I take underwater pictures. Some, I've had printed very large on photo archive paper, framed and are hanging on walls

None of those pictures would have been completed without color correction and post processing. I doubt much of any photographic art would be purchased if post processing and correction weren't done to the image. (post processing done to photos by Minor White and Ansel Adams too... Oh, how many images would Heff get away with if they weren't post processed... but, I digress)

I don't have a "spider" program that syncs my monitor to my printer. What I see on the monitor is NOT what will print out on my printer. I process the images for that too. Why? Because I like the way they look when they get printed, framed and hung on the wall

I don't take pictures to please anyone other than myself and the people who show interest in seeing them. I use one of the cheapest digital underwater setups available and sometimes pictures need some tweaking and sometimes they don't.

To me, I am a purist. I like the subject of my photos to look like the subject of my photos, color and all.

If someone else likes my underwater photos that is a HUGE bonus to me. Most of the shots I take never get past storage on my computer. Every once in a while I go back a few years and remember who and where I was diving (Yeah, I enjoy that too)

When I see someone else's photos I don't think 'Hey, I wonder if he/she did any post processing on that shot'... I think 'Hey, that's a great shot! I wonder if I can capture that with my camera!'

I've seen the difference in pictures when I've added hardware to my setup. My shots improved immediately when I added a second strobe. My shots improved by leaps when I added a focus light. Now, I'm waiting for the +10 diopter to arrive because I need to see what's hidden on the antenna of nudibranchs and bumblebee shrimp
----

If you like the pictures you are producing, stop caring what others might think about how you got them

I just did this edit... I can have the shot, or I can have THE shot... (This is one that will end up in storage never to be seen again)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

First let me say: "I bow before the masters" .. I just got a Point and Shoot cheapie. The micro strobe cost more than the camera AND housing! LOL I will never take professional photos, but I'm looking forward to snapshots to feed my seconary adiction SCRAPBOOKING and to share with no diving friends.

Of course if I had photos like those shown here I could "charge" my friends for browsing my scrapbooks.

Don't sell yourself short ... cheap little point-n-shoot cameras have some limitations, but you can get some pretty nice shots with 'em.

Here's an example of something you can do with a small setup that you can't with a larger one ... I got this pic by placing my camera into a tiny opening in the octopus den and panning a half-dozen shots. I couldn't even see what I was shooting at the time ... this shot would be impossible with my current, larger setup.

... and most P&S models today are excellent at macro photography, because you can get the camera right in close to the subject, reducing both color filtration and backscatter ...

Those were taken with a simple little P&S, stock housing and no strobe ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

What does it take to get "good" lighting in poor viz like we have most of the time in Monterey? 5-10f is an average and lots of turbidity [floaties] makeing for massive backscatter. Any recomendations?

Two recommendations ...

1. Get as close as you can to your subject ... closer is better.
2. Make sure that you are not contributing to the turbidity. Once you've got the position you want, stop moving. If you need to kick to maintain position, use a non-silting kick like a bent-knee frog kick ... and as lightly as possible. Do not move your hands at all, except for camera positioning.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Blackwood]

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/data/500/MVI_1969.mpg

Every time I watch it, it reminds me of why I dive...

WOW where is that?

 

[Blackwood]

I don't have a "spider" program that syncs my monitor to my printer. What I see on the monitor is NOT what will print out on my printer.

I don't either. I just have a color calibration tool for my monitor. Pros will probably calibrate to the paper they're printing on, but for my money as long as you use the right paper and ink it's close enough.

Photoshop is probably more efficient at removing backscatter though...

In my experience, Photoshop isn't efficient at anything

(except the pano function... I've had good luck with it).

 

[mjh]

Like many my photography is for my enjoyment and to accost and bore dinner guest with, lol. Built the website to rationalize some of the cost and time. For me it is the challenge of translating what I SEE to film/pixels. A big part of that is that is getting as much right in the water and physical challenge of getting some shots without impacting the creature or environment.

As for post processing I would much rather have people do that than lay on the bottom, grab on to things, move things, or manipulate subjects.

Reality is if you are entering contests or going beyond shooting for your own pleasure the bar is very high now, IMHO due to digital, shots that would have wowed people 5-6yrs ago many look at now and say/think "nice but I have better, seen better." Think pygmy seahorse shots or mandarin fish mating.

A couple I like but have become common

 

[Nemrod]

I attempt to duplicate in the image what I see with my eyes and as interpreted by my mind. We all see differently and interpret what we see differently and I suspect that is why we disagree on what constitutes a "good" or "great" photograph. I figure to what extent I am able to do that I am successful and that rarely happens. My goal are photographs that depict what I saw and the difference between what I actually saw with my eyes and what my brain interpreted from the scene is the challenge. I don't post process, I hate Photoshop, RAW is laborious and boring and often artificial in appearance when run through all of the programs and manipulated. Of course, digital is an algorithm, so to some extent it is all artificial. I seem often to prefer what Sr. Canon think I saw vs what I come up with in Photoshop. Heresy?, whatever.

There is a curious phenomena, I have noticed over the years, nothing to do with digital or equipment but with perception, if you find that certain persons consistently don't like or enjoy your photographs, have you noticed that just as often, you don't like or enjoy theirs? I believe that to be a perception phenomena, we just don't see the same thing, the same way. I suppose then what defines a great shot is that everyone (or almost everyone) enjoys the image, not just your wife and dog.

Realizing that there are so many things wrong with this picture; equipment, function, exposure, blown out highlights in the sun ball, blurred subjects, framing, optical effects, on and on it nonetheless, when I look at it, it recalls to me what I saw as I rolled over and pushed the shutter button, therefore to me, it was a successful shot, it brings me back to that moment. I chose it for this example because it is so bad, in all ways it sucks except, to me, it is what I saw as perceived in my mind's eye at that moment.

So I guess I shoot for myself, if somebody else likes it, good, if not, they should get their own camera.

N

 

[sabbath999]

Two recommendations ...

1. Get as close as you can to your subject ... closer is better.
2. Make sure that you are not contributing to the turbidity. Once you've got the position you want, stop moving. If you need to kick to maintain position, use a non-silting kick like a bent-knee frog kick ... and as lightly as possible. Do not move your hands at all, except for camera positioning.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

EXACTLY:

I regularly dive and shoot pictures where visibility is 5-10 feet, and often less than 5. The ONLY way to get pictures is to get CLOSE to the subject.

I use one or two external strobes, but you don't HAVE to.

Also, in virtually any body of water there are places with slighly better and places that are blown out. Try to find the best vis availalbe.

I don't publish pictures where I haven't spotted out backscatter, so these have been spotted for that but that's the only PP that is done to them... all taken in a fresh water quarry with 5 foot vis... (the first one is from Rolla... people who dive there simply don't believe I got that shot in that nasty water Rolla has, but it is true). I use a point & shoot.

This is under the hood of a car sunken in the quarry, on a day the vis was less than 10 feet...

This is the car in question (video shot a different day with vis that is about normal for this quarry). The guy in the doubles is ScubaBoard's very own gbray (he's just working them up).

Bottom line is to try to limit the amount of backscatter by getting close and having excellent diving skills, and fix the rest in post (there's not really much else you can do in horrible vis). Shooting pictures in bad vis, currents and surge means you have to be a good diver first, and the photography becomes a very distant second skillset. IMHO.

 

[Blackwood]

...

That fish face is wonderful!