Watch Your Histogram
Sep 19
Watch Your Histogram
Text & Photos by Brent Durand
It’s easy to get excited when shooting photos of a subject we don’t see every day. Most underwater photographers have learned not to get excited about a photo on the LCD because there might be imperfections when viewing the image at home on a computer screen. That said, sometimes we can’t help but get a little excited about a shot, like the other day during a beach dive in Malibu, CA.
Medium-sized juvenile Garibaldi are pretty common if you have sharp eyes, and I was stoked to see a very juvenile Garibaldi about 1″ in length, swimming boldly back and forth across a rock backdrop that would allow for me to shoot some photos.
After a few minutes of shooting I was sure I had nailed a some sharp and properly exposed images of the fish. Time to pack it in. But in my excitement I neglected to check the blue channel to make sure the vivid blue/aqua coloration of the fish wasn’t blown out. I didn’t discover that the blues were blown out until I got home, squashing my hope to have this image in the library. Lesson learned. You better believe I’ll be checking each color channel on the next shoot!

This was almost a “keeper”
Brent Durand is an avid California beach diver, photographer and writer with a rapidly growing portfolio of unique underwater, ocean lifestyle and adventure images. Brent is editor-in-chief of the Underwater Photography Guide. Make sure to follow UWPG on Facebook for updates on everything underwater-photography.
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