Quake3World

I'm still trying to sort through all the pics from my vacation and get them uploaded. I haven't gotten very far, but I thought I'd share a couple of the ones I've got up so far.

The view from the balcony outside our room:


A nighttime shot of Cruz Bay, the main port and marketplace in St. Johns -- it turned out a little grainy unfortunately:


A couple cool pics of Stoplight Parrot Fish:



I called this a rockfish, but haven't found out the real name of it yet:


Just a school of some different little guys that were swimming all over the place:



These were cool looking in the water, but the water was pretty dirty where I took the pics. If you can't tell, it's pretty photoshopped, but I guess it turned out okay:

nice

Thankee, sir.

Were the underwater pics with or without flash? And how deep was the water where you shot them?

(They look good, btw)

No flash on the underwater pics. I accidentally used the flash a few times when the camera reset from inactivity and it came on by default, but I've learned not to use the flash underwater - at least not without a diffuser.

Most of these pics were taken less than 20 feet deep, while we were snorkeling. I haven't finished touching up the pics I took when we were diving, which was around 40-50 feet.

The problem with the flash underwater is that the water reflects a lot of the light right back at you (especially if there is debris in the water), and really messes up the picture. But when you get around 30-40 feet deep, you start to lose some of the colors because some of the light rays won't penetrate that far. My solution was to use a flashlight to illuminate things. It worked pretty well, but I really needed a much wider light beam than the one I had.
I've got one picture of a nurse shark that was resting under a ledge -- I was only about 5 feet from it, but because my light was so narrow I could only illuminate a small part of it, and really had a hard time doing that with one hand and holding the camera steady with the other. I'll post more up as I get them finished so you can see what I mean.

And thanks.

Ah, I see... Most snorkeling photos I've taken have been quite dull and darker than I'd like, but they were with disposable cameras. Yours look like a decent amount of light was getting through, so I was comparing the quality with that of my crappy photos.. It looks like I might have to give in and get a case for my digital the next time I go snorkeling and forget about trying to use those disposables.

Yea, the disposables don't help much, especially if the flash is on. But it also depends on how clear the water is. If you have super clear water, you won't even need a light if you're just snorkeling less than 20 feet deep.

edit: Don't forget though, that I had to adjust some of the color levels in PS on these pics too. You have to do that with any underwater photos or they will have a really green/blue tint to them. When I get home tonight, I'll post a couple of the unedited originals for comparison.