Critique my coral photos

[KirbyBTF]

Hey all, I recently picked up a Nikon 1 J1 with the 10-30 lens and 30-110 lens. Been using the 10-30 lens most. I've been using photoshop to get the blue out of the pictures but thats it. No saturation adjustments made on any of these photos. Critique these and let me know what I can do better, thanks!

 

[BigBallin]

Seems like there isn't enough lighting imo

 

[installman]

I had a nikon 1j1 with the same lenses to play with for a couple weeks, in decent light the focus was super fast and the 30-110 lens was great for taking pics at the parks. I don't remember whether I got any decent coral pics with it or not though. I will have to look on the pc later. One suggestion I can give you is to shoot straight 90 degrees to the water or the glass to get the best pics in an aquarium.

 

[KirbyBTF]

Awesome thanks for the advice guys. Since those photos I've upgraded from a PAR38 to a 150w MH + T5 fixture so that problem should be solved.

I try to take as many pictures straight down as possible (easy since it's a shallow frag tank), the hard part is NOT getting the reflection of the mini sun metal halide right above it.

 

[faithenfire]

the light is flat and uninteresting.
also the photos are just snapshots and don't really have a point of interest to draw the viewer in.

 

[KirbyBTF]

Can you suggest some ways to improve that? And what do you mean by uninteresting light? I have some new shots to upload, maybe I have imrpoved a bit.

 

[KirbyBTF]

 

[Alchemic]

I love the new pics. The first ones were dark and did not properly show off the corals.

Especially like the SPS pic with the top of it being out of focus....think the light is interesting =P

 

[KirbyBTF]

Thanks! The SPS pic is my favorite too.

 

[KirbyBTF]

Some more I picked up for a fathers day gift to myself.

 

[faithenfire]

uninteresting means that the light does not assist in having a point of interest.

here you see the light brings out the fish and the rest of the background falls away in the darkness



if the light is not changeable, then we need a bettter point of interest. something to draw us into the picture
here the angle and the light makes the hammer more interesting.