Underwater photo - 2

[tedtim]

Here is a third photo. Would appreciate comments on how to make it better.

The photo was taken off the island of Roatan, Honduras during January of this year. I used a Canon Powershot A70, with the underwater case. For lighting I used a Ikelite DS50 underwater strobe. The mode was either Tv or Manual. I covered the camera flash and used only the external flash, which was fired by a slave. This was my first time using the strobe.

For this photo and the two in my previous post I used Photoshop for color correction, especially the reds, which disappear with depth in the water.

[Todd Jacobsen]

A little more light on main subject (trumpet fish I believe) would be nice. Your subject blends into the background, but maybe that was the plan. But the lighting is very flat.

[embdaw]

I dont know if you are using PS, but if you go to the adobe studio exchange, there is a great underwater correction filter. I was having a problem with my underwater pix being too blue and washed out. This filter is AWESOME and completely fixes the shot...


hope this helps

[tedtim]

I do use a PS action called a "mandrake" on some of the photos. In this particular case, the trumpetfish was really big and I had to be some distance from it for the photo. The red part of the spectrum starts to wash out at about six feet (total light reflection is twelve feet) from the subject or at about 12 feet under water. Because I was limited on the lens and the distance I was from the trumpetfish, the strobe was not as effective as I thought it would be. I could not get any closer or else I would have had to cut off part of the fish in the photo. This was a really, really big trumpetfish; we estimated about four feet long.

I guess I needed a wide angle lens for this one.

Thanks for your input.