Diver With Schooling Mado

Blogged by Simon on August 26, 2010 12:57pm | Last updated by Simon on August 26, 2010 1:44pm | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Diver With Schooling MadoThese Mado (Atypichthys strigatus) are absolutely everywhere in Sydney Harbour and surroundings, so they’re good predictable schools to work with. This photo is a bit older from a dive at North Head in Sydney, but I remember chasing them in circles with my buddy (in the shot) until this opportunity arose with the sun behind the subject, and a small enough distance to light up the school and the overgrown boulders with the flash.

Camera settings: Nikon D300, 10.5mm fisheye, f/8 for 1/80s, ISO 200. Post processed for levels and saturation and with the foliage filter in Color Efex Pro to bring out the yellow fishtails. I also adjusted curves in the highlights to get a pleasing tonal gradation for the sun rays.

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Long Way Up

Blogged by Simon on August 21, 2010 9:02pm | Last updated by Simon on August 22, 2010 1:10pm | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Long Way UpBlack&White is a recent favourite of mine. More than often i will convert shots to see whether they have good light and end up liking monochrome better than the color version. I used the excellent Silver Efex Pro by Nik Software to modify this photo which is largely pale blue, and used a medium green filter for the black&white conversion, while bumping up definition plus fifty percent to bring out the surface texture.

The highlights are enhanced with a surface blur filter in Photoshop, blending in with the original version, which adds a bit of glow. Level and some curve adjustments in Aperture before the conversion. Camera settings: Nikon D300, 10.5mm fisheye, f/11 for 1/80s, ISO 200. Photographed at Magic Point, Sydney.

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Still Life

Blogged by Simon on August 20, 2010 11:21am | Last updated by Simon on August 20, 2010 11:21am | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Seagrass, Crystal CreekA still life scenery in fresh water, photographed at Crystal Creek in Townsville: seagrass, deadwood overgrown with algae and some unidentified fish in the background. There is too much flash hitting the silvery bodied fish, but it doesn’t disturb all that much in this photo.

Note to myself. Definitely improve on photographing schooling fish with shiny bodies. Time and again i have ruined exposures with hitting them full frontal and creating ugly reflections. The battle plan for next time is to turn the flash down and angle it sideways to avoid burning the highlights.

Camera settings: Nikon D300, Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom, f/11 for 1/60s, ISO 200. Post processed for levels, saturation in Aperture and with the glamour glow filter in Color Efex Pro.

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Pipefish

Blogged by Simon on August 16, 2010 12:29pm | Last updated by Simon on August 18, 2010 8:10am | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

PipefishAnother semi-regular find in Chowder Bay: Pipefish (Syngnathinae), usually buried in the muck and easier to spot at night than during the day. Camera settings: Nikon D300, 60mm macro, f/29 for 1/125s, ISO 200.

I didn’t like the color and lighting of the background, so I burnt it with a brush, then used the sponge tool in Photoshop to completely desaturate it to the point where only the Pipefish was still in full color and everything else was grey tones.

Next, I went into Color Efex Pro to colorize the entire image using an orange tone picked off the subject and a low opacity. This gives the image the overal same tone, while preserving the ‘pop’ in the subject. Sharpened in Photoshop with an unsharp mask, and colors are boosted with the vibrancy slider in Aperture.

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