A Few Images From Saturday Evening 6/26

Dann-Oh wrote:

I attempted 3-5 images, For this dive my dive buddy was a newer, non-photography dive buddy. I didn't want her to get "board" with how slow we photographers are. The water temp was also near 55°F so where was a little colder than she wanted to be.

yeah, unfortunately dialing in strobes is better suited for solo or SOB divers.   Unless your buddy is the spotter, it's not a good pairing.

This was captured with a single strobe unfortunately there were many other people that gathered around the Sea Hare after I started to image it and they brought their flashlights to "help add light", again all good from me but something to be noted.

Yeah, you should have told us about the cropping and the single strobe use, as your provided photo pointed to the dual strobes.

Single strobe lighting is simpler in that you don't need to balance or coordinate, but much more limiting in what you can do, esp as I don't think these compact strobes have very wide coverage.   Over the top lighting is usually the starting point.   it's harder to avoid backscatter.

When you're in a group and your subject becomes too popular, sometimes you need to retreat and return a couple minutes later.

Was your strobe on the right side of the camera?   The sea hare composition would have worked better if the single light was coming from the left side, slightly above the lens plane.

Shot 3 - I think you were closer to the subject, while your strobes were still positioned the same as before. Hence the background was highlighted over the subject. This is a situation where it's often best to push the strobes in front of the lens plane, but then aim backwards to you. The level of light that hit the subject itself looked good to me. You just want the background to be dimmer than the subject.

Awesome tip, I haven't thought of backlighting these before. Actually this was my first try at imaging the pens (I haven't seen them in person before either). I also have the snoot and color filters so that might be some fun to play with.

so it's not really backlighting in this context.   You're still lighting up the subject using the strobe edges from the side, but the excess light is directed towards you rather than the sand behind the subject.   If you look at that included article and scroll to the bottom, you can see an example of the strobes pointing backwards.

backlighting is a different approach that often adds a lot to macro subjects.   A well trained buddy can do it, but often you just drop a hand light in the sand behind, or if really fancy, use one on a tiny tripod mount.

I also think you should swap out those 3" arms for 6s. I use a combo of an 8s and 12s myself. If the first one is too short, it limits your ability to shoot inward and backwards.

I'm using 5" and 8" arms I thought about using all 8" but I was advised against it by the few people I chatted with since I'm using m4/3 they thought everything should be closer to the camera.

I misjudged the length of the mains.   5s and 8s should do alright.    But I don't think m43 has any relevance to the length.   In CA, backscatter is a much bigger concern, and more benefit from longer arms getting the light further off the lens axis.