Potato Chip Coral (Pavona Species)

Image Critiques
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1

Original - Pavonspecies.jpg
Original - Pavonspecies.jpg2000×1334 1.73 MB

Critique Style: Standard

The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.

Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive

About This Image

This coral is commonly known as the potato chip coral due to its potato-chip like lobed skeleton. Under my reef tank lighting, the coral fluoresces green, but the flash produced a more natural color for the color when observed under a daylight spectrum. The blue shadow area is due to the ambient light from the LED aquarium lights without flash. I corrected it slightly by reducing cyan, blue saturation and increasing yellow saturation. To prevent reflections from the glass surface of the aquarium, I used a polarizing filter and bounced the flash off of the aquarium glass at an angle of around 45 degrees.

Feedback Requested

My goal in this photo was to capture the texture of this particular coral. Did I accomplish this? The blues are an artifact of the ambient lighting that was not masked by the flash. I deliberately left it in for purely artistic purposes. How do you like this as presented. Thank you for looking!

Technical Details

Camera: Z9
Lens: 200mm f4 Micro
Focal length: 200mm
Shutter speed: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f11
ISO: 100
Flash: Manual 1/32 power mounted off camera

Tripod/handheld: Tripod
Focus method: Manual
Filters: Polarizer
Technique: Flash set to bounce off of aquarium glass at 45 degrees
Conditions: Lighting artificial LED biased towards blue/purple UV

Processing software: Lightroom Classic, Zerene Stacker, Photoshop CS 2026
Major adjustments: Levels, Shadows, Highlights, Sharpen, Bandaid tool for backscatter removal
Blending/stacking: 255 images stacked with PMaX
Other notes: Full Frame

2

Very cool. I love the blue bits against the orange. The only thing that I might suggest is to lighten and/or bring out more detail in the darkest area between the orange and blue. The detail in the rest of the frame is so wonderful and that area feels out of place to me. I’m in awe of the amount of work it takes to make a photo like this!

3

Beautiful work Jim. The detail in the folds is amazing and so beautiful. I also love the colors you captured and processed. I think they work well together. Actually even the richness in tones makes this image. Considering that you shot this through glass and water it is amazingly sharp.

4

Wow! Wow!
beautifully rendered image - gorgeous colours and textures

Fantastic – as presented

Huw

5

Wonderful texture and colors. You handled the lighting very well! I think the blue actually adds quite a bit to the overall image but I agree with Bonnie that bringing up the details in the darkest area would be an improvement. Very well done.