I took a few photos on Flat. They turned out flat. There was too much guesswork involved on tiny things where I didn't already know what colours they should be.
I switched back to Standard, and then, on a whim, to Vivid. This setting emphasizes colours and contrast, not really my style in landscapes, especially the grey-green landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. But it never hurts to experiment.
I turned to the aquarium; here, a vivid setting might help. Colours fade underwater, especially when the photo is taken through algae-covered glass. And here are the first sample shots, some good, some not so good.
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| A mud snail, Batillaria attramentaria, eating algae off the glass. Lightened, background noise despeckled out, and sharpened. |
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| A grainy hand hermit, Pagurus granosimanus. The vivid setting shows up the blue bumps on his legs and chelipeds. |
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| A carnivorous snail eating an inoffensive algae eater. I saw it first on the glass, prying the tiny snail off. Once the little guy was captured, the predator let go and dropped to the sand. |
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| A nude hermit, recently molted, resting before he goes looking for a new shell. This was well back in the tank, where usually everything is greyed out. Post processing was only needed to reduce noise and sharpen. |
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| Turned around and heading down to look for a shell. Despeckled and sharpened only. |
And one photo that didn't quite work:
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| Orange-striped green anemone, Halliplanela lineata, on the glass. |
The anemone was surrounded by extreme pollution; bubbles and swimming thingies, luckily behind the critter, but still confusing. The vivid setting highlighted them all, so the background had to be cropped out and re-worked; a long, slow job. But I'm impressed by the pattern in the base, so I've included the photo.
I went to Brown's Bay in the sunshine, with the camera set to Vivid. Bad idea; I've deleted all of the landscape photos. But I got a few critters under the docks, where the setting seems to have been helpful. I'll process those tomorrow.
