Some of my first photos with A6300

Some more thoughts on Lightroom processing.

I have 6.14, and it does not have some of the controls you use, like Dehaze. That could affect all the other settings, but I'm not quite sure what it does.

I see you using a lot of Clarity. I've learned to be very careful with it as it tends to emphasize things in a harsh way. I typically put in a very nominal amount (+2). I used to use more, but eventually mostly quit using it. It reminds me of oversharpening.

A typical ballpark set of adjustments for a lot of my images will have something like this:

1. Contrast ends up at +10-25

2. Highlights pulled down 10-100% - highly dependent on reflective areas

3. Shadows pulled up +10-50 - highly dependend on scene

4. clarity at +2

5. saturation at +10-15

6. black point pulled down very carefully until histogram just kisses the left side. I use this as a dehaze technique, but it have to balance this with exposure and contrast adjustments.

7. sharpening - most shots are left at the Lightroom default. Some are sharpened a bit more, but I feel like I only need sharpening on a 45mp image if I've somehow missed focus a bit.

You should definitely crop more.

Here are some examples:

Sea Rod - in this case I've pulled down highlights more than I'd like, and the tips have gone a bit blueish, but at least I can see the details:

Here's another one that came out better:

Here's an arrow crab showing the typical problem I have - getting the part sticking up from the head in focus as well as the claws:

Here's one that cropped up well, though the claws are covered by a Brittle Star.  I worked with the white balance on this one, but I think the color is pretty close.  More golden than most.

Here's a similar Lionfish crop to yours.  I had to do a lot of work to tame the highlights here.  I think I used the eyedropper tool on a white spot to set white balance.

Social Feather Dusters:  I often have a lot of cropping choices.  Perhaps I cut this one off a bit at the bottom.

One of the 'techniques' I use to get more depth of field is to stand back a bit and crop in.   My cameras (36mp D810 and 45mp D850) have enough resolution to do this.

My late wife and I had planned a Cuba trip last year.  I would have loved it.  Always wanted to dive around Cuba.