pics from Bonaire

[Grateful Diver]

Last week I took a half-day photo class, then worked on getting to know my new G10 camera. Unfortunately, during the class I discovered that my brand new Sea & Sea YS-110a strobe wasn't working properly ... it would fire maybe one in every four or five times I attempted using it. Fortunately, the instructor was adept at showing me how to get reasonably good pictures with just the little YS-25 I had been using for a slave.

Since Comcast has apparently decided to stop the photo show service, I'll post a sequence of pictures in this thread ... of the hundreds I took, I've got it down to about 25 that I liked best.

One of my goals in getting the new setup was to start working more with wide-angle and portrait shots, so I'll start with those. I'll post just a few at a time, then follow it up with a "reply" posting a few more. I'll work my way down from wide-angle to portrait to macro.

I'm liking this setup, although I have much yet to learn. Hopefully once I get the second strobe fixed, I can start learning how to use the lighting to a better advantage.

With that said ... some wide-angle shots ...

Cheng on the Hilma Hooker ...



... and another shot along the side of the Hooker ...



a smaller wreck called "La Machaca" ...



The pier at Buddy Dive ...



... and Cheng, doing what Cheng loves to do ...

[Grateful Diver]

Here's some "Chengfish" shots ... I think I took more pictures of Cheng on this trip than I have in the past few years I've been taking pictures ... trying for different angles, lighting, and foreground/background ideas ...

[Grateful Diver]

Some of my favorite "scene" shots ...

[Grateful Diver]

Individual fish pics ...

[Grateful Diver]

Octo shots ...

[Grateful Diver]

... and finally, the small stuff ...

[Nwbrewer]

As I sit here on Sunday morning attempting to photoshop out all of the nasty little dust spots from my pictures of local nudibarnchs, just so you can see what I was trying to photograph, all I can say to your pictures Bob is

Those are awesome. Glad you had a good trip.

[Jan K]

Bob, superb photos, it looks like the camera to have, I love the wide angle stuff especially. Looking forward to see more.

[Dusty2]

Awesome stuff Bob! looks like the G10 is just the thing. All the way from wide angle to macro it seems to cover them all. Of course it help to have the right person pushing the shutter button. The only problem with all these shots at once is I can't send ooooo's and ah's of individual ones I really like. Just too many good ones to keep track.

I really like that eel shot and the smiling parrot below it and all the macro's are awesome. I especially like the seahorse shot, great background to really highlight the subject!

[Grateful Diver]

They should only get better once I get this "white balance" thing figured out.

This was my first venture into using a camera completely in manual mode ... and learning how to change aperture settings, etc. while a subject is on the move is a real challenge (and you can see I didn't get it right a lot). But it is a big improvement over letting the camera make all the decisions.

I feel like I'm starting to learn how to actually be a photographer, rather than just a diver who takes pictures ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Dmitchell]

Nice shots Bob, I don't know if you are asking for critique or not but just a couple points - many of them look under exposed or dark were you shooting in .jpg or RAW? If you shot in RAW you might be able to bump up the exposure and make them even better.

The other thing would be to move your subject out of the center point of the frame. Think if the frame as a tic-tac-toe board and put your subject on one of those lines. For instance - I think the most eye catching shot here is the turtle with the diver. I don't particularly care for having the diver in the shot but the position of the turtle catches the eye.


Thanks for sharing!

[Grateful Diver]

Nice shots Bob, I don't know if you are asking for critique or not but just a couple points - many of them look under exposed or dark were you shooting in .jpg or RAW? If you shot in RAW you might be able to bump up the exposure and make them even better.

The other thing would be to move your subject out of the center point of the frame. Think if the frame as a tic-tac-toe board and put your subject on one of those lines. For instance - I think the most eye catching shot here is the turtle with the diver. I don't particularly care for having the diver in the shot but the position of the turtle catches the eye.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Dave ... I am ALWAYS looking for critique. I'm shooting JPG ... right now I have other new things to figure out. So I figured I'd stick with a familiar format for a while. But the camera does have RAW capability, and I intend to learn how to use it.

The lighting is a big thing ... and since one of my strobes crapped out on me (and the bigger one at that), I did feel like I was reducing the available light by quite a lot. Kicking up the power on the strobe only seemed to produce hot spots.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[spatman]

wow, bob, you are off to a great start with that G10!

keep 'em coming.

[olyvtx]

Great pictures and looks like great diving too!

[airsix]

Great pictures, Bob. Hope you had a really good time down there. Thanks for sharing.
-Ben

[dphershman]

Great pics! I'm going there at the end of the month--- how was the viz? I heard that the island was brushed by a hurricane this past fall and the viz suffered a bit. But your photos look fantastic! :hello2:

[DiverDown]

Individual fish pics ...

Is this fish enclosed in something?

[Dusty2]

Yes the parrot fish make a protective bubble of, for lack of a better word, slime to sleep in.

[DiverDown]

Wow thats cool, I was hopeing i wasnt seeing things. They are great pics, I espescially like the turtle ones.

[BASSMAN]

Great Pic's but where are all the Greatful Diver photos?
No Bob pics?

[Diver_C]

I love this picture Bob! I love smiling sealife. It's very cute! Thanks for sharing Bob!