Maui Tide Pool

Maui Tide Pool, a photo by Chris McCormick on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This was part of some tide pools out in front of The Gazebo, a popular breakfast spot out in West Maui.

There wasn't a whole lot of life in the pools, but I liked the crescent shape of these urchin, and they were in some nice soft light in the shade of a boulder. I didn't realize at the time how much color was hiding under the water!

There was glare on the water that made everything look kind of muddy (check out the unedited original). This would have been a perfect use of a polarizing filter to cut the reflected sunlight (I even own one!), but I either didn't bring it or didn't think to put it on :(. I managed to workaround the glare in processing by pushing the exposure and pulling up the blacks to add more contrast back in.

Maui Sea Turtle

Maui Sea Turtle, a photo by Chris McCormick on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
For our vacation to Maui (without the kids!), we decided to pick up an underwater point-and-shoot to play with. We settled on the Canon PowerShot D10. I'm so glad we got it!

It was tough to use at first... You have to look past any water drops or fog in your mask at a small LCD screen, and it can be really tough to make out what the camera is actually pointed at. And, to make an interesting composition, I think a lot of the time you want to get down close to the ground and shoot up at the fish, so that you have the blue ocean as your background and not the sea-bottom. So you have to hold your breath, swim down (fighting the salt water and your bouyant gear to stay down), try to hold the camera steady, and make out the composition on the screen. Yeah, it's as hard as it sounds.

I feel like I've started to get the hang of it, though (for one, I've found it's easier in deeper water), and I think this shot proves it's worth the effort :).