Back At It, With a New Concept
I am now experimenting with simulated HDR
I haven’t made any posts lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been at it. The water conditions have just been miserable for the last few weeks. I snapped a few shots here and there the last few weeks, but it was hard to shoot in the soup that was the Mediterranean.
Last week had decent visibility, but the sea wasn’t exactly cooperative. Lots of waves and I had myself a little accident. I reached for a rock, and there just happened to be a rascasse (or scorpionfish) who wasn’t too pleased to have my hand placed upon his back. Well, he shared his displeasure by stinging me, and I didn’t have a chance to explain that I just didn’t see him there. Turns out that scropionfish venom is not only painful, but I happen to be allergic. I got some meds for the allergy, and suffered through the pain for a couple of days, and everything was eventually fine. I will be carrying anti-allergy meds with me whenever I go diving from now on.
On to the photos! This week, I started playing with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos and wondering how I could apply that technique to underwater photography. What HDR photos do is they allow the photographer to take several photos of different exposures and combine them together in order to bring out all of the details in a scene. I found myself thinking that this technique would be great for underwater photos, but there was a huge hurdle I could not get past – you need to take 3 photos and then combine them. Underwater, everything moves – the water, the fish, the light. It is simply impossible, even under the best of conditions, to get three successive photos that are close enough together to create a useable HDR.
I then remembered an article I read about a technique called “Simulted HDR”. In this technique you take one RAW photo at perfect exposure, and export it three times: one over-exposed, one perfectly exposed, and one under-exposed. You then combine the photos like you would when creating a regular HDR photo in order to create a similar effect. It’s not perfect, but I have begun to adapt this technque for use in my underwater photography.
Below, you can see my first attempt at it. I am pretty happy with the results, and will be working more with the technique this summer. Next week I will be in Corsica, and will be SURE to put this new technique to use.
Enjoy!
Dive 3-27-2011 – Missing the Boat
I pulled out the old Inon Macro lenses this weekend.
So I wake up at 8:00 am on a Sunday, get everything together, and drag all my equipment down to the port to go diving with the CIPA. I arrive right on time, and lo and behold… The boat’s not there, and everyone is gone. Now anyone who knows me knows that 9:00 am is not my best hour of the day for higher level cognitive function, so I decided to sit and ponder my situation. About five minutes later, I get a text from my girl noting that it was daylight savings this weekend.
I forgot the change my clock forward and I literally missed the boat.
Having hauled all my gear down to the port, I decided to make the most of it and I went for a quick dive out at Coco Beach. It didn’t let me down. I ran into the same Doris Dalmatien that I ran into a few weeks ago. Only this time, he left his feeding tuft open long enough for me to get a really nice shot.
Other than that, I have a few nice macro shots (I worked heavily with my Inon Macro Lenses this weekend) from my afternoon at Cap D’Ai. I spent the day out there on Saturday, and boy was the weather nice.
I leave you all with a wonderful quote that I came across this week. These are supposedly the last words of Shakespearean actor John Barrymore (1882-1942). “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.” That guy sounds like he would be awesome to meet.
One Year Anniversary
My first passable Rascasse photo
The 20th of July will mark the one year anniversary of www.azur-diving.com. I started underwater photography just under one year ago, and it’s fun to think of all the things I’ve gotten to experience and see, courtesy of mother nature. The photos in this site represent only a small fraction of the beauty that mother nature has presented for us, and I’m looking forward to capturing more of it on camera. I posted this today, since I am heading to Corsica for a week of camping, hiking and diving. I won’t have any updates next week, but I’ll likely have a huge update once I get back.
Looking back at my first pathetic attempts at underwater photograhy (we’ve all got to start somewhere), it is amazing to me how far this site and my work have progressed in such a short time period; it has gone from point and shoot documentation to what I hope is beginning to resemble art. I understand that I’ve still got a long, long way to go before I can reach the level I want to reach, but it is comforting that I’ve been able to at least get this far. I wouldn’t been able to get where I’ve gotten without the encouraging words of friends, family, supporters, and of course the patience and (sometimes harsh) opinions of my lovely partner. So thank you all, I can only hope to get even better with your support. I’ve got to push even farther if I want to reach my ultimate goal of being at least able to compete at the World Festival of Underwater Photography in Marseille. I am at least going to enter for the first time this year and see how I stack up.
Okay, down to business. This week’s photos are, in my opinion, average at best. I missed a few great shots,and this morning, I struggled with shooting racscasse (scorpionfish). The rascasse, in my opinion, is a beautiful and varied fish that can change colors to blend in with it’s surroundings. This makes them incredibly hard to shoot, since they either blend in so much with their surroundings that the pictures look flat, or they have such variation in color that you get “hot spots” which are blown-out white areas. Using flash makes their eyes turn yellow, and gives instant hot spots, so that just makes it that much more difficult. I’ve taken perhaps hundreds of shots of different rascasse, and I’ve yet to get one that I am completely happy with… Until today. I managed to get ONE shot finally that I like, and that is a good place to start.
Otherwise, in this week’s shots I have a picture of my partner crossing a thermocline. It’s not a wall-hanger, but you can see where her body and oxygen tank are all distorted in the photo. That distortion happens when you move to another warmer or colder layer of water. I also have a few shots of octopus, a shell I have never seen before, a nacre ( a relatively rare and large mollusk) and a rather large chapon. We also saw a Poisson Lune (or Mola Mola) from the boat, but I didn’t get a shot. Enjoy the shots, and I hope I’ll have some better ones when I get back from vacation!
Hermit Crab Invasion
The hermit crabs were out this weekend.
Okay, maybe it’s not an invasion, but I found a bunch of them chowing down on whatever they can scavenge. There are definitely more than usual out, and a good thing too, because these particular ones were pretty colorful once I got into macro range. Normally, they hide when I get my camera close, but whatever they were eating must have been too good to worry about me. Oh, and I got a shot of the spaghetti monster too (that’s what I call them, I have no idea what they are really called). I am guessing it is a worm that is related to the spirograph. When you get real close, it contracts rapidly and hides, much like the aforementioned spirograph. I also got what I consider a couple of decent shots of a scorpion fish. They are deceptively hard to shoot.
Wonderful Morning!
Grouper or mérou in French
Saw my first grouper (or mérou in french) in the bay this morning! In fact, I saw my first two grouper. Pretty big day, it was one of the only things I had never seen, and now I can leave for Thailand on a super good note.
Check out the pics here: http://www.azur-diving.com/Snorkeling9-09
The sea was calm and visibility was great, and I also saw two cuttlefish (or Seiche in french). In fact, I got some video of them spraying ink and scooting away super fast. I will post those some time after I get back from Thailand. I also saw a bunch of Scorpionfish (or Rascasse in French). Got some good pictures of those too.
Scorpionfish or Rascasse in French
This week has been super busy, so I didn’t get my Canon Powershot D10 review completed yet. Stay tuned. I will try to have it completed for when I get back from Thailand.
Talk to you all in a couple weeks!
