The Maldives trip was my first extensive sojourn into taking underwater stills of marine life, so it was a real eye-opener. I’ve commented on my experiences using the different equipment that I carted along for the trip, so here’s a post-processing perspective of the RAW files that came out from the Olympus TG-5.
The singularly largest correction needed in Lightroom for the underwater stills was in white balance. The photos were in fairly shallow waters of between 0.5 to 2 meters, and in ambient light. I didn’t bother with setting manual WB on the TG-5 before hitting the water, though I reckon there’s probably a preset for it already in-camera. Lightroom’s WB selector to find a neutral color point helped loads in this regard. The rest of the adjustments were to taste, but my usual preferences were slight bumps in Whites, Clarity and Contrast.
Four samples from across our four snorkeling outings:
Sample #1: 1/400s, f3.2, ISO200, 32mm. Adjustments were -0.81EV, Contrast +7, Highlights -70, Shadows +42, Whites +15, Blacks -37, Temp 4950K, Tint +57, Vibrance +15, Saturation +1, Clarity +31
Sample #2: 1/400s, f3.2, ISO100, 32mm. Adjustments were -0.06EV, Contrast +7, Highlights -58, Shadows +34, Whites +23, Blacks -30, Temp 5350K, Tint +70, Vibrance +15, Dehaze +18.
Sample #3: 1/800s, f2.8, ISO100, 25mm. Adjustments were -0.37EV, Contrast +7, Highlights -70, Shadows +48, Whites +5, Blacks -23, Temp 5650K, Tint +65, Vibrance +15, Clarity +18, Dehaze +32.
Sample #4: 1/1250s, f2.8, ISO100, 25mm. Adjustments were -0.12EV, Contrast +7, Highlights -63, Shadows +44, Whites +12, Blacks -23, Temp 5200K, Tint +61, Vibrance +15, Clarity +19, Dehaze +17.
Recent comments