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bsharp

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Location
Coral Springs Florida
# of dives
200 - 499
Just purchased a Canon G7X Mark ll with a Fantasea housing and the nion 2000 strope. Any suggestions on how to get awesome shots and the brilliance of the colors in the fish and corals
 
Take Reef Photo's class at Blue Heron Bridge.
Get comfortable with the camera topside.
Read Alex Mustard's book.
Practice, practice, practice.
 
Shoot in RAW mode and get familiar with good photo editing software. Canon's DPP app is not bad. I use Photomatix to do tone mapping, which is useful for improving the color spectrum of your photos. Photoshop is the standard, of course.
 
All of the advice you have received so far is spot on. A couple places to start are to make sure you have your buoyancy dialed in and then to consider the weight of your system underwater. I generally don't carry my camera the first dive on a trip as I like to make sure I have my act together from a weighting and breathing system first before adding the task loading associate with a camera. You can either keep your weight the same and account for it with your BC or drop some lead. I prefer to drop some lead. I have a larger system (5dMk4) and have to take into account whether I have a macro port or big dome on it. You can use float sticks and other means to increase the buoyancy of your rig if you need to. Making your system lighter is really helpful for macro.

The next rule is to get close, real close, to your subject. Of course you don't want to be finning or hitting coral so you need to look for areas that allow access without damaging the reef that have something interesting to shoot. A great way to do this is to start your dive at the bottom of the reef (if that is the kind of place your are) and to really slowly work your way up. Then your body and fins are away from the reef. Find a piece of bottom that is not live coral to rest a finger on to stabilize yourself while you wait for the fish to get used to you. I was taught this trick by a photo pro on Bonaire and it really helps you get much more immersed in the fish life so you can get close shots and more natural behavior.

The final rule of thumb is to shoot level or preferably, up. Shots down are typically not very interesting and don't allow you to get much context into the background. Working your way up the reef really helps you see the upward shot opportunities. That said, some subjects are nearly impossible to get ascending shots of and you have to take what you can get. No picture is worth damaging the reef.

I think your camera shoots RAW and definitely take advantage of it. I use Lightroom from Adobe to edit them. You will be amazed what you can do with it to turn an iffy picture into a keeper.

I generally begin a dive with my camera set for what I think I am going to need. Usually in the tropics that is around ISO 100, shutter 1/200th and aperture of F8. The aperture will be smaller (higher number) for macro and larger (smaller number for wide angle.

Here is some of my stuff. I'm not a pro, just an avid hobbyist.
 
You asked about getting brilliance of colors. It took me a long time to understand this, but it's worth thinking about some simple facts. When you dive, everything looks blue, or green. If you want brilliance of colors, you have to learn how to use your strobe. The colors only look brilliant with lots of light. So, shoot in less than 3ft of water or use your strobe. You can get some color from manual white balance, red filters, shooting in RAW and correcting in lightroom, etc. All those are valid techniques that I've used. But for brilliance, you will need your strobe. And the #1 thing about the strobe is, as said above, you need to get close. Practice getting close. Think 3ft or less from the subject. Take a look at images you like:

34033718630_dcfb066173_z.jpg


You will be able to see what parts were "hit" by the strobe. The parts with full strobe lighting will be colorful and brilliant. Partial strobe lighting will have color but less brilliance. Parts not hit by the strobe will look like they do to your eyes (blue/green/etc). When you review your shots, look at how colorful they are and try to remember how close you were. Or, you can try this: zoom out, leave all your settings the same, start X distance away, then move 1ft closer, 1ft. closer, and closer until you feel like you're too close. Then review and see what looks good. Have fun, and try shooting in full manual!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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