Photo Tips for Kona
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Photo Tips for Kona
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| The Kona Underwater Photo Graphic Society | ||
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| As with any dive location, the more you dive it, the better you become at knowing where to find things and what to shoot. Kona has very good macro. KUPS wants to give you some ideas about finding good subjects and producing good results. | ||
| Water Background: On a sunny day, in depths of about 30 feet, shooting laterally we find that backgrounds generally read f 5.6 at 1/90th with ASA 100 film. You will gain a stop over sand as opposed to lava. Opening up more will cause the background to begin to wash out. Once you have them at more than a 30 degree angle above you, you will want to stop down one stop. Using shutter speeds of 125th or faster will freeze the suns rays for you. We do suggest bracketing. At deeper depths you may have to open up a stop. | ||
| Coral Background: There is a lot of coral and Hawaii and quite a bit of coral rubble. The rubble can be a problem, especially if your subject is not dominating enough. Consider blacking out the rubble by stopping down. Another option is to stay low and to shoot up, removing most of the coral from your scene. If you are putting coral in your background, be careful of lighter color coral or dead coral that will overpower you picture/subject and draw your eye to it. Remember that most viewfinders only show 90+ percent of your picture area. Repetitive patterns make for better backgrounds than non-repetitive ones. | ||
| Where To Find Subjects: Most of your macro subjects do not walk up and shake hands with you. In fact, they hide. Kona has good macro but it does take a while to know what to shoot and to know where to find it. If you find a spot you like for macro, dive it again and the probability is you will find more new subjects and still see the old ones. Most of your macro life is either in holes or under ledges. The bigger the ledge the better. The shallows (15 feet or less) are home to lots of interesting fish/schools of fish) including surgeon/doctor fish, tangs, blennies puffers, and box fish. Your best lens is a 20mm or your macro. Shoot schooling fish with a 105 or 60 macro for great fish-eye shots. Coral heads make great homes for a variety of life. Coral heads in the sand are especially good. Cleaner shrimp, banded coral shrimp, leaf fish, eels, leaf fish, and juveniles are often resident on them. Pipe fish are almost always found in pukas and at the back of large ledges. There are a few areas where you can always find turtles including the City Of Refuge and Turtle Towers at Honokohau Harbor. Turtle Towers should be done by boat. |
 Timothy Ewing |
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| Night Diving: Kona almost always has great night dives. Eels are out free-swimming, fish have their night colors out and the bottom is loaded with crustaceans - lobster and shrimp and crabs. Fish are more approachable. Want to develop your Hawaii portfolio fast - schedule a few night dives while you are here. Try the Manta night dive for a great experience. |
 Timothy Ewing |
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| Dolphins: Your success in getting close to Dolphins depends more upon the dolphins attitude than you. If they are on the move, they will continue to pass you quickly and probably not too close. Running around them to get ahead will produce the same results. Don't try chasing them, it won't work; if they are interested in you, they will approach you. The best approach is to get into the water quietly - don't splash and be quite - and wait for them to come near you. Move towards them when you see them but if they move away, don't bother to try following. Then dive down below the surface and approach them. If they are hunting, they will circling a lot and will probably get close to you eventually. Try to keep the sun to your back so that they are lit by the sun and not in silhouette. A 20 or 28mm Nikonos or a 24-50 zoom in a housing are your best lens choices. It is not worth shooting them with a strobe due to distance and area of coverage; also, you may spook them. If you hear them when you are on scuba, swim out off the reef and you may pick them up as they pass by. |
 Timothy Ewing |
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| Pilot Whales: Pilot whales tend to cruise up the coast and it is worth running up in front of them and catching them as they come through. You may find yourself close enough to touch them if they are lounging around. Don't; it is illegal and there is one documented case of a woman getting dragged down twice by a large male. Oceanic White-Tips often travel with the pilots and can be VERY aggressive especially if more than one; they will come right up to you and even bump you. As they get very close, they do make for great photo opportunities. Follow the dolphin guidelines above for approaching and photographing them |
 Porter Watson |
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| Get Down Low And Shoot Up: A cardinal rule, especially in Kona where there is lots of distracting rubble and plenty of blue water. | ||
| Know Your Subjects: Some subjects are more photogenic than others (purely subjective) and some backgrounds show better. Knowing how your subject shoots and knowing its behavior will put you into a position of taking better photos. Repetitive diving of an area is one way to build this knowledge. | ||
| Be Prepared: Be ready for your subject. Pre-focus your camera to the distance you expect and set your f-stop in advance. If you are in the water with dolphins, practice this when you have "down time" (when the dolphins are not near you). |
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Photoshop Tips
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| Sharpen an image using Layers | ||
| Resizing an image | ||