Well I'm back...

Had a great time with some amazing diving. Got to practice my diving and UW photography. Even got out to do some unguided dives and survived

Went to temple, near garden, fiddle garden, far garden, amphoras, ras ghozlani, shark & yolanda and ras ghamila (the local house reef)

Got to seem my first shark @ near garden a little white tip reef shark, but disapeared before I could get a pic .

Saw the local house reef turtle 3x which was great. Also saw napoleon fish and baracuda there too.

anyway here are a couple of my fav pics (from 6gb of images I brought back )























if you want to see any more
s178.photobucket.com/albums/w253/buddlet/Egypt%2009%20II/

I went to look at your photos on Photobucket. Wow you are a very good underwater photographer.

Are any touched up with software like Photoshop?

Do you use an external flash?

Thank you, I'm still just starting, but I think my composition is improving and I have been doing a lot of reading in the subject. I am looking forward to get back in the water with my camera soon

I did adjust the colours on couple in Photoshop as it was my first time out with that camera and the white balance wasn't right on some especially the deeper ones. I used the internal flash on some, but not many as it did cause back scatter issues, but no choice on the night dive. I've not invested in a strobe (external flash) yet as I don't want the bulk it adds until I am further along scuba/ photo experience.

The only image I really manipulated was this one and it was to remove the background (and annoying diver looking stupid in the background ). I should upload the original so you can see the before and after really..

Very good pictures! I'm impressed.

For even better results you should try out Adobe Lightroom - it's awesome for this purpose!

In September I did some dives at the same sites..

Here are my pictures: www.flickr.com/photos/henrik_reworks/sets/72157622405619244/

And my movie:


As you I was a "first timer" / rookie with a UW camera

great video and pics, I'm soo ready to go back now
I'm jealous about the octopus though, I'm still to find one. I loved the scorpion fish still. The big shoals of lunar fusiliers are cool too. I did recognise the yolanda wreck in there, the toilets are a dead give away lol.

What camera setup were you using? Did you use a colour filter as the video colour was amazing?

Thanks for sharing.

Actually, I used a simple Canon IXUS 990IS with an UR Pro red filter and manual white balance adjustment, using a palm surface as a white reference point.

For the movie I further used iMovie's color vignette for manual color optimization (see attached file). that way the colors become amazing, especially when you take in to account that most of the video was recorded at 20-30 meters depth.

No additional lightning equip. was used




But I must admit, that I'm currently upgrading to more professional equipment - the very nice Stingray+ from Light & Motion (www.uwimaging.com/stingray-plus-features.php)

That stingray is a very nice bit of kit.. I'd love to see some of the vid you shoot with that

I need some decent video editing software. Think I may invest in a filter too now. All my video has been very blue at depth (no white balance on my fuji video)

I would very much like to see the original photo to see what you did because I would like to learn more about it.

Do you use Manuel white balance on all your shots?

here is a couple of my before and afters for you

before


after crop, colour/ contrast adjustment and background fill


Before


after colour/ contrast adjustment


Photoshop has a few auto colour and contrast functions you can use if you don't fancy manually playing with levels. They work quite well for most. You can also look at the image's curves if you want to try something more advanced. All these are under image-adjustments menu in Photoshop.

If you want to take a subject out and put it against a plain background you can use a tool like the photoshop edge detection, which will highlight areas of the same colour (within a specified %). No the easiest of things depending on the picture and you may have to manually erase parts.

Komodo wrote:


Sorry, missed this question. I use to use the camera's under underwater setting, but using the Manual white does work better. It's not that hard to do once you get use to it. On my camera you basically select the manual white balance option then take a picture of something white to give it a reference to calibrate against (if you don't white balance on the way down them the pics will get blue and the way back up you will find things get more red). People use different things to calibrate. White slates are what you are suppose to use, but the palm of your hand can sometimes work better. Also there are grey slates that are suppose to be used in low light situations that can be used at deeper depths.

I was bored so I uploaded a couple of the shorter films I did too

big Titan triggerfish

Little humbug damselfish

And here are an before/after example from around 25m depth at Jackson Reef (Tiran).

UR Pro red filter and at depth white balance adjustment.

As you can see Adobe Lightroom is just needed to enhance the clarity can contrast. Colors are quite good with manual WB.

@henrikhedegaard that's really good. I dabble in photoshop and can get the basics done (even if a pro then comes along and shows me how to do the exact same thing I spent an hour doing with 3 keypresses).

Can anyone write a basic guide to using photoshop / filters to spruce up underwater pics? I think it would make an awesome value for the site - obviously full credit/links to author if anyone mans up to do it. I'd love to - just don't have the skillz!!

Well, if you're not skilled in Photoshop, I would still recommend that you have a look at Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

It's made for Photographers (not designers) and is awesome at fine tuning your photos in just a few clicks/seconds, and you can download packs of cool settings for your images.

Check: www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

Thanks for the tips. I can see it makes a great picture even better.

I will work on one of my pictures and upload it for you so as to get your opinion. I hope I’m not abusing your kindness.

I read a book from PADI called “Digital Underwater Photographer”; it came with a white balance slate. I don’t use it because it seems to take so much time to prepare for a picture. However I will try it on my next dive as you suggest.

As for your videos, I like the way they are so clear. Is your digital camera also a video camera?

If it’s OK I will upload next weekend 2 videos I took in the Saint Lawrence River in Ontario Canada. It’s my first and only experience with underwater video. I shake quite a lot. You will also notice that the water is not as clear as it would be in salt water.

Looking forward to your advice.

Going through the motions of white balance is a pain. I know on my current underwater camera I have to go through a couple of menus. I've been told you can program the canons' print button to be a shortcut to it.

My camera does do 640x480 video, not full HD yet
My videos were in less than 5m to keep the light and colour sharp. I need to do more work (and get a filter) for deeper. I think I need to find a decent editor like IMovie that henrikhedegaard uses

These 2 videos are taken on the same day. They are my first.

Visibility as you can see is very limited and there is a strong current.

I took the vides with an Olympus Stylus 1030 SW. I think it’s good enough for a beginner.

The Rothesay was taken in Prescott Ontario and the Conestoga was taken in Cardinal Ontario. Both were in the Saint Lawrence River. (18 C)






I am open to your suggestions.

I tried some of your suggestions with Photoshop. I like the results and I will start to use this more for my land pictures as well.

Here are 2 before and after pictures.

When you take pictures, is there anything you can do to limit the back scatter without an external flash or probe?

Thanks for the help.

Before 1

I don’t know how to put more than one picture at the same time in a post.

So I had to do 4 replies.

After 1



Sorry.

Before 2