Just started UW photography locally in freshwater.

[Huan.K]

Can’t attache more files because they are too large for this forum:confused: .
Visit my site http://www.underwater-ireland.com/main.htm to see more my pictures.

[Jonathan Bird]

Huan,
Welcome to the site, and thanks for posting your first thread. Very neat images! We don't see a lot of freshwater stuff here, especially such colorful pictures. Can you tell us a little about the way you made these images? (Lighting etc.) It looks like ambient light with a white balance.

One piece of photographic advice I can give you is to try to get down on the level of a fish and photograph it as if you were another fish, rather than shooting down on them.

Best,
Jonathan

[Huan.K]

Thanks Jonathan.
I’m not a new in photography, but I never used digitals before and never before had camera with me underwater. I do snorkeling and some free-diving (up to 10m) only. So, light for me isn’t a problem and I don’t use any extra light except natural. That’s why pictures so colorful. That freshwater canal where I took those pictures is very shallow, somewhere between 2-2.5m. So, most of shots were made from short distance and very close to the surface. Actually I was snorkeling most of the time because on shallow water fish doesn’t like when you go to the same level. But if you slide slowly above it – it’s O.K. I’ve tried different modes and different settings including underwater mode (my G7 has it), but it doesn’t work well in freshwater – to red. I’m still not clear what mode or what settings are the best for that place. Best results for today I’ve got from manual white balance with normal light and other mode - with custom colors. Everything else I used in auto mode. Manual white balance works well but I had to do not forget to keep it reading again and again when light condition was changed (sun hides behind the cloud, or I went to the shadow, etc). It’s little bit annoyed me. Any way, I keep learning, not such fast as I wanted because I don’t have much time to spend on this. Hope this week will get new pictures. Soon I plan to go to the Atlantic coast – in blue-blue water… I like that South-West coast of Ireland very much. It’s amazing, both above- and underwater.

[solisti]

Getting to the fish level is not that hard snorkeling, but holding a torch in the other hand and the camera in the other and trying to point both at the fish while not moving yourself or touching the mudbottom and trying to focus... and all this in dark of the night, thats getting a bit hard. Proof below.

http://personal.inet.fi/koti/sairaat/sukekuvat/slides/IMG_8285crop.JPG

[Huan.K]

Huan,
Welcome to the site, and thanks for posting your first thread. Very neat images! We don't see a lot of freshwater stuff here, especially such colorful pictures. Can you tell us a little about the way you made these images? (Lighting etc.) It looks like ambient light with a white balance.

One piece of photographic advice I can give you is to try to get down on the level of a fish and photograph it as if you were another fish, rather than shooting down on them.

Best,
Jonathan


Couple of new pictures and also I would like to ask you Jonathan next: I'm recording video as well. O.K. it's not perfect because I use still Canon G7, but still not too bad. The main problem is file size - it's huge. For example about 5minutes of video in format motionJPEG 640x480 will be about 500Mb - !!! Maybe you know how to reduce (probably converting to different format) video file size without loosing significantly video quality?

[Clay Coleman]

Welcome, Huan. Neat images! The subjects are totally unfamiliar to me, and it's nice to see something new. -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

Couple of new pictures and also I would like to ask you Jonathan next: I'm recording video as well. O.K. it's not perfect because I use still Canon G7, but still not too bad. The main problem is file size - it's huge. For example about 5minutes of video in format motionJPEG 640x480 will be about 500Mb - !!! Maybe you know how to reduce (probably converting to different format) video file size without loosing significantly video quality?

Your camera probably shoots an AVI file which is not very highly compressed. Any of the recent mpeg formats (mpeg4, H.264) accissible through the pro version of quicktime ($30) will be considerably more efficient, and depending on settings, look just as good as the AVI. I use that technique to shrink the video files of the kids that my wife is always shooting using her Canon digital point and shoot. (There is a video camera sitting on the shelf next to the still camera and I keep trying to tell her to use the right tool for the job! Video camera to shoot video, still camera to shoot stills...but it's a brave new world.)

Jonathan

[tarczy]

I use that technique to shrink the video files of the kids that my wife is always shooting using her Canon digital point and shoot.
Jonathan

OMG!!!!!

YOU ACTUALLY HAVE A CANON CAMERA IN THE HOUSE????!!!!

AND YOU ACTUALLY USE IT?????!!!

BLASPHEMOUS!!!!! :eek: :rolleyes: :eek: :rolleyes:

[Huan.K]

Couple of new pictures from Irish Sea.

[sorvju-f]

Couple of new pictures from Irish Sea.

Huan, the crab is great. Freshwater is very demanding environment, but anyhow you have reasonable visibility. Closeups are the ones you get the most impressive pics in FW. Are you using external flash with your G7?

Jukka

[Huan.K]

Huan, the crab is great. Freshwater is very demanding environment, but anyhow you have reasonable visibility. Closeups are the ones you get the most impressive pics in FW. Are you using external flash with your G7?

Jukka


Thanks. I don't use any flash. This is why I've got G7 - it works well in low light.
But I hope you understand that seabass and crab are from the sea.

[sorvju-f]

Thanks. I don't use any flash. This is why I've got G7 - it works well in low light.
But I hope you understand that seabass and crab are from the sea.

Thanks for further info!

We have rather dark waters here in Finland both in see and lakes, like "night dives" every time. Torch is regular equipment during the dives. External flash with the power is almost every dives must when photographing.
My friend added to his new G7 Ikes DS51, but sorry no results yet.

Jukka

[Huan.K]

Thanks for further info!

We have rather dark waters here in Finland both in see and lakes, like "night dives" every time. Torch is regular equipment during the dives. External flash with the power is almost every dives must when photographing.
My friend added to his new G7 Ikes DS51, but sorry no results yet.

Jukka

Visibility is different here, it depends of location and time of the year. Some areas up to 20m+, some ... 1-2m. But I'm doing free-diving and snorkeling only, never below 10m, usually between 2-7m. So, even if vis is not perfect I still can manage to get some acceptable quality shoots. Of course, becasue I don't use air tanks my other abilities underwater are very limited. But I don't have big problems with light-! Maybe you could try shallow water as well.

[Huan.K]

I've put couple of videos on my site, eventually managed to reduce files size converting AVI to WMV. Have much more but don't have time to edit.

[allison finch]

:p

Very nice photos!
Welcome!!