A friend and I took a day trip to Ruby Beach on the Pacific Ocean several months ago when there was a minus tide. The sea life was exposed on the rocks. I think I did a lot of things wrong in my photography that day. One being not paying attention to my shutter speed. I was shooting with my Sony 7RM5, Tamron 50-400mm lens and hand holding the camera. I was using manual settings, ISO 640, shutter speed 1/200 at f/8. A lot of the sea life was down low which was also a challenge for me and sometimes across a pool of water. I edited in ON1 RAW 2023, used NoNoise and Tack Sharp, adjusted the midtones, black and white points, used a local adjustment to burn a light area on the starfish. Added a vignette and cropped to a square as that seemed to work best in putting the focus on the starfish and surrounding anemone.
5 comments posted
Mike Cohen
I like it a lot. I don't use ON1 but whatever tools you used worked beautifully and I like the crop as well. I think it looks great as is and have no suggestions. Posted: 09/03/2023 10:14:22
Ally Green
What a lovely colour of the Starfish and compliments the anemone. I have never seen them up close like that so well done as there is alot of detail there! My only comment would be to slightly decrease the crop on the right hand side so that the top part of the Starfish has more room. Posted: 09/10/2023 11:35:43
Judith Lesnaw
Pamela, I love this fascinating image. I think of it as String of Pearls with Chocolate Doughnuts. I did not grow up near an ocean and in fact have had very few encounters with them - and none with tidal pools. Thus I had to research the term "negative tide". The definition is not intuitive, but the physics of the phenomenon are wonderful and would make a great game. The image is particularly interesting as the starfish gives the illusion of an elf stretching out their limbs, whereas the anemones are symmetrically contracted. The complementary colors and details are great. Seeing these creatures, and now living on the East coast, I feel drawn to the sea. Posted: 09/10/2023 18:01:57
Ann Brixey
What a great image. I love the vibrant color in the starfish, have seen them in tide pools, and marvelled at how colorful they are.
I have no suggestions, nothing to be changed. Great capture. Posted: 09/13/2023 08:42:36
Sharon Prislipsky
Your post processing has worked very well in my opinon. There is a lot of detail in the image, and the colors are complementary. The image appears to me to be a little softer on the left side, but not so much that I think it is a serious problem. I am betting that if you printed this as a canvas gallery wrap the softness would not be noticiable at all. To me the square crop is exactly right. Posted: 09/17/2023 12:55:08
