Batfish

[Mike Poole]

This was taken at a place called Orimas Thila in the Maldives. The reef is a grey shark cleaning station, and if the current is running medium to fast, then the sharks will stay within a couple of feet of the divers. Unfortunately, on this occasion, the current was running slow, and despite having 22 of them around us, they never came within 15 feet, so nothing but record shots.

A couple of the other fish were more tolerant of close approaches, so I went to plan B and went for a shot in what we call 'cathedral light', which is basically using (or trying to use!) the light rays to their best effect

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Canon 7d with a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, set at 15mm. ISO 200, 1/250th, f10, not too much in the way of PP other than white balance correction and a bit of a contrast boost

[Gabriela Plesea]

Who needs PP work with an image like this, Mike? Stunning capture in beautiful (cathedral:S3:) light, beautiful colours, love the presentation, congratulations!

Kind regards,

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Mike and Gabriela ,me ……………. i did something a bit over the top but you get the idea i hope . Just my thoughts on this one straight after the first look.

Mike nice wide open UW space with nice cathedral sun beams and very lovely subject .Great colors and comp works nice.There is room for more in this frame, at least for me .
Please keep posting this UW stuff, a nice break from all those land animals.specially with this quality.

TFS Andreas

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Mike,

uugh a fish :bg3: was searching for hairs, but did not find any, instead scales. Andreas did a nice job already. Love the sun beams in this one. For the comp it sits for me a tad to the middle, but that is just me. Everybody has a different taste. I might would put the fish more to the RHS with a crop.

Have a nice eve

Caio
Anette

[Marc Mol]

Love the colour and lighting effect here Mike, the Maldives is certainly fabulous for this kind of work, just wondering on why f/10?



Hi Mike and Gabriela ,me ……………. i did something a bit over the top but you get the idea i hope . Just my thoughts on this one straight after the first look.

TFS Andreas

I think Andreas you forgot to mention what you actually did in the RP? It appears you increased the saturation, correct? Anything else?

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Mike - Another great underwater image. Love the cathedral lighting. Andreas's rp has given it a bit more punch. I would normally agree with Anette about it being too centered but would not want to crop any of the great cathedral lighting.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Anette agree with Rachel , if you crop like you would do, you will loose an important effect here - the cathedral light - i feel.

Hi Marc , if i remember correctly for UW photography you need a lot of DOF to get the shots you like to get.Cause focusing is a lot more difficult than on land .But better ask the specialists about this.When i did this for a very short time in the past with a non autofocus and a fixed 35 mm lens on the UW camera , it was more trial and error than anything else :bg3:. So i gave up .

Re my editing , if you think pumping up the saturation will do the trick - try it and you will see :eek3:. It is not looking the same.
What i did in PP is a contrast boost with two layers , set to Hard Light ,both are masked , then both grouped together , masked again , grouped the Group together and D&B on this Group.Sounds complicated is in fact not.
I would say i used a two layers and a couple of luminosity masks to achieve is, as a side effect the colors start to live.But too colorful, so on top of this group ,a copy of the BG layer is taking place with reduced opacity and blend mode set to "Saturation". By using this you have the original color from the BG layer if you wish ,but the contrast from your edit.Now set the opacity of the top layer to your taste .
Finally i used smart sharpen in PS CC at 300/0.2/ 2% . Duplicate the sharpened layer , set blend modes to darken and lighten , opacity 66 to 33 for the layers , so ratio will be 2-1. Select the two sharpened layers , make a group of them , add layer mask , selection of just the fish , and set the overall opacity for sharpening to your taste.

So you see not just pumping up sat. It took me way longer type this than the edit. The edit is roughly by hand 2 min. i have an action that creates all the layers incl the masks within 15 sec.from there i just do the quick D&B on the last layer mask.

Hope this helps , Cheers Andreas

[Neil Burton]

I like the original, wonderful colours and detailed.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Mike, I think you achieved your plan B, it certainly conveys those 'cathedral' rays streaming through the water, very nicely indeed. Also I like the brighter areas at the top too, I guess it's something we try to avoid in the majority of wildlife, however I feel this is an integral part to the scene so you get depth & surface.

Looking at the OP I do think there is a lot more again, you can coax from within the original. I would also try to play with the light here too. Opening up the top lighter areas, remove the magenta/red cast from the water areas and bring a bit more tonal depth to the LH side. I think Andreas has brought out to much black in the water, it looks contrasty and a little gritty. It also highlights various 'dust bunnies and perhaps spots within the housing, something again that could be addressed in the RAW conversion. The subject does again have more detail, using Curves to lighten and dark areas gives a bit more form to the subject I think, likewise adding more selective sharpening. The overall blue can also be tailored and maybe a hint more 'sea green' or keeping it that blue comes down to personal tastes.

I tried to stain as much of the OP in the RP.

TFS
Steve

[Mike Poole]

First of all, thanks for the comments everyone, and the edited shots are certainly an improvement. Unfortunately for me, I'm a PP luddite and a lot of the technical phrases have gone right over my head, but it just shows me how much potential quality I'm currently leaving behind in my shots. I'll do some learning!

Ill try and answer some of the other aspects raised now -


For the comp it sits for me a tad to the middle, but that is just me. Everybody has a different taste. I might would put the fish more to the RHS with a crop.

Normally I'd agree - there is a time and a place for central compositions, and this probably isn't an ideal situation, but if I move the fish to the RHS I'd lose the sun rays, which are a main part of the shot. I suppose I could add some canvas on the left and see if that helps at all


just wondering on why f/10?


Underwater, you kind of work 'backwards' in terms of exposure. With a wide angle shot, you generally use strobes (flash) to keep colour in the foreground interest, so on a shot like this, you set the exposure for your background first. We use the shutter speed first to affect the brigtness of the background, and the fastest flash sync available was 1/250th, so that's what I used. I then had to use the aperture to darken the background even more, hence the f10. After that, the strobes are set to provide the correct exposure to the main subject - in this case the Batfish.


The overall blue can also be tailored and maybe a hint more 'sea green' or keeping it that blue comes down to personal tastes.


I deliberately went for a blue background here rather than a green, due to the way water normally looks around this area. I specifically used a technique to assist here, which I'll try and explain. Different brands of strobes pump out light at different colour temperatures. From memory, my Inon z-240's are about 5500K. Before the dive I fitted them with a filter which lowered the colour temp to around 4600K.

Water takes colours away from the shot with red being the first casualty, so by getting close, and warming up my strobes, I was able to shoot the shot with way too much 'warmth'. If this had been shot on slide film, the fish would have had a horrible red cast. However, with digital, by returning the WB on the subject back to normal, the opposite effect happens on the blue background, and the blues become 'bluer'.


It also highlights various 'dust bunnies and perhaps spots within the housing, something again that could be addressed in the RAW conversion

The dust bunnies and spots are actually bits of debris floating in the water known as 'backscatter' They are the arch-nemesis of underwater shooters. They can be controlled to some extent by strobe placement, but after that they often need cleaning up in PP

I hope that makes a bit of sense, and once again, thanks for all your comments and efforts

Mike

[Marc Mol]

Underwater, you kind of work 'backwards' in terms of exposure. With a wide angle shot, you generally use strobes (flash) to keep colour in the foreground interest, so on a shot like this, you set the exposure for your background first. We use the shutter speed first to affect the brigtness of the background, and the fastest flash sync available was 1/250th, so that's what I used. I then had to use the aperture to darken the background even more, hence the f10. After that, the strobes are set to provide the correct exposure to the main subject - in this case the Batfish.
Mike

Thanks for clarification on DOF Mike.:w3




Hi Marc , if i remember correctly for UW photography you need a lot of DOF to get the shots you like to get.Cause focusing is a lot more difficult than on land .But better ask the specialists about this.When i did this for a very short time in the past with a non autofocus and a fixed 35 mm lens on the UW camera , it was more trial and error than anything else :bg3:. So i gave up .


Hope this helps , Cheers Andreas

Good point Andreas.:w3
Thanks for your RP techs also.

[Morkel Erasmus]

This is really nice, Mike! Love the lightrays and the crisp quality on the fish. The reposts are both nice, with some added zing for sure.
Thanks for your additional information too. This does look like a challenging genre of photography indeed!

[Mike Poole]

Thanks Morkel. U/W certainly adds a few extra technical bits that you don't have to deal with topside, but it's great fun - providing the fish turn up on cue as your always time limited!