Doing Something

[Fishstiq]

I thought I'd post up a couple pictures I thought were decent, since I made my new goal of "doing something" with my pictures.... please be honest in your assesments, but try to keep the gloves up! Thanx for checking them out.

These are all unedited and uncropped. Should I be cropping or editing them, or stick with the "au nautural" thing? Opinions and reasons would be appreciated! Thanx again.

[Fishstiq]

I forgot one. I tried to edit it in, but I have no edit button....?

[defied]

The first two seem to be blurred in the front and background too early. Check your aperture.

I love them though. 0]

[defied]

Err... and your f-stop... sorry. 0]

[Fishstiq]

I gotta be honest, I have no idea what any of that is.... maybe it's time to take a "get to know your camera" class.

[spatman]

These are all unedited and uncropped. Should I be cropping or editing them, or stick with the "au nautural" thing? Opinions and reasons would be appreciated! Thanx again.

you have some great shots, amigo! as for cropping them, it all depends on what you, as the photographer, want to highlight in your image. it's all a matter of taste and judgement.

[defied]

I gotta be honest, I have no idea what any of that is.... maybe it's time to take a "get to know your camera" class.

0]

Okay, so for starters, look at the first one. You will notice that portions of it's body in the foreground are really blurred, and then there is a moment of clarity towards the back.

Try to focus the camera on the foreward part of the creature (or the bottomsoil directly in front of it), and take the picture.

This allows for the center of attention to be in focus, and fade out of focus towards the back. When it's focused in the middle of the object, but blurry in the front, and background, it distracts the eye.

It's a great shot, don't get me wrong, but there is a touch of distraction (really, not many people would notice or care, but if you want your photography to really subliminally "pop", that's my advice).

Setting your aperture and F-stop would allow an increase in the focal range, so you could have the entire creature, sharp and focused, and not just parts of it. That takes time to really get down, so for now, just focus on the front of the creature, and snap away! 0]

D(B)

[sheahanmcculla]

See...Perfect example for the need of more tubes at Mukilteo!

[dwashbur]

Stiq,
Others much more qualified than I have addressed the camera stuff, but I haven't seen much in response to your question about editing, so I'll take a stab.

I usually crop my pictures simply for ease of working on the primary subject that I'm after. Here's an example. My wife took this white-lined dirona shot yesterday at Les Davis. I did a few things to it. I use Photoshop because I haven't found anything more powerful yet. The version I'm using is CS3 Extended. Here's the pic:

First I cropped it, because it was a fairly wide-angle shot, and I'm interested in the nudibranch, not the green stuff he's hanging out in. Next, the shot had a bit of a yellow cast to it, so I applied Photoshop's "Auto Color" from the "Image/Adjustments" menu. That removed the yellow and gave it a more natural color. I've noticed that sometimes the "Auto Color" does the trick, sometimes the "Auto Levels" does better. It just depends on the shot and I experiment a lot. Next, it was just a tad overexposed (easy to do with these guys!), so I used the Burn tool, set at 9%, to darken some of the area around the center of the critter in order to lift out more detail. With both the Burn and Dodge tools, I like to keep the percentage low so I have better control over what happens. (And if it doesn't work, there's always CTRL-Z to undo it.) Finally, I save it under a different name. It's probably a little over the top, but I keep the originals of my shots just in case I want to do something different later on.

Cameras are different, too. That shot was taken with my daughter's Canon A630, since my wife's Casio flooded Saturday during our first club dive and my daughter didn't go to Les Davis with us yesterday. This one is taken with my clunky old Pentax Optio S5i. Here's the original shot:

And here's my edited result:

I had to do this one a little differently. First I cropped it, again, and then I applied the "Auto Color" (I almost always have to do this with my Pentax shots). Because my Pentax is only 5 megapixel, as opposed to 8 for the Canon and 10.1 for the late, lamented Casio (I just ordered another one), I sometimes have to add just a touch of sharpening to get the detail I want. This was one of those times. Photoshop's Sharpen filter, I've discovered, adjusts it just enough but not too much. And again, I save it under a different name.

What kind of camera are you using?

[Pez7378]

I thought I'd post up a couple pictures I thought were decent, since I made my new goal of "doing something" with my pictures.... please be honest in your assesments, Thanx for checking them out.

Wolf Eel.jpg

Crap.

These are all unedited and uncropped. Should I be cropping or editing them, Opinions and reasons would be appreciated! Thanx again.

Nope. Just stop taking pictures because frankly, you're terrible at it.

[Nwbrewer]

I thought I'd post up a couple pictures I thought were decent, since I made my new goal of "doing something" with my pictures.... please be honest in your assesments, Thanx for checking them out.

Wolf Eel.jpg

Crap.

These are all unedited and uncropped. Should I be cropping or editing them, Opinions and reasons would be appreciated! Thanx again.

Nope. Just stop taking pictures because frankly, you're terrible at it.

Another chance to be nice to joe, and what happens? He said give opinions AND reasons.....

[Sounder]

He didn't specifically request for us to be nice to him.

[Dusty2]

Hi Joe, Don't listen to those nay sayers... Actually other than cropping they are pretty good. I really like the two wolfeel shots. The color is good and the focal point is right. You need to get closer on the grunt shots. They kinda get lost in there or crop them down.

For posting on here Make a copy of you finished product and reduce it down to 5X7. Any larger and you have to do too much panning and lose the since of the total picture.

As for editing??? As spatman said that is a matter of what pleases your eye. If it's in focus and the color seems good leave it alone. If it just seems a little off then go to work on it, if it's to far off, it's a basket job forget it.

Your on the right track. Just keep shootin

[whatevah]

I really like the two wolfeel shots.

In particular I think that the young wolf eel in the pipe (the older one with grey pigment) is a spectacular photograph - certainly one I'd be quite proud of. Well done fishtiq - looking forward to seeing more of your photos.

[airsix]

Well done fishtiq - looking forward to seeing more of your photos.

My sentiments as well. It's been a month, Joe. Lets see some more!
-Ben

[Dmitchell]

1. Not interesting, yes it's a nudi but a shot from the top down is usually a no-no.

2. can't even tell what it is.

3. too far away, the anenome is your subject and the other stuff is distracting.

4. the only reason I can see it is because I know what it is. The eye is drawn to the writing.

5. Pretty good - the object in the foreground is very distracting I like it best of them

6. Not bad the foreground is distracting again.

As far as technique - work on your exposure/depth of field and use the old adage zoom with your feet.

For instance, on the anemone if you were a little closer with a wider aperture, the anemone would fill more of the picture and the rest would be OOF so the eye would focus on the Anemone.

The other thing is that every one of these has the subject dead center or very near. Look at moving them to a 3rd line and the image will look much better. This can be fixed sometimes on a crop.

hope this helps,

Dave