Who Likes Dolphins?

[wfduncan]

A couple hundred of dolphins.... These pictures dont really capture the size of this pod, but I estimated well over 100 maybe even 200 or 300. We thought they were a big school of tuna busting bait from far off, but they weren't. No tuna at all actually, usually we find some under groups of dolphins and whales. These are common dolphin I believe.
I have lots and lots to learn so please give me some feedback.

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[wfduncan]

Pretend like they are in focus. They are but the resolution seems to have been screwed up when i resized them or something. Also I apologize for all the typos.

 

[molested_cow]

I think you need to check your camera presets. It seems that all of your photos are one stop below.

 

[wfduncan]

It was shot at 1/200s and f/5.6. Could you explain further on what you mean by one stop below? I'm sort of a newbie.

 

[molested_cow]

Did you use manual exposure or did you just set it to auto?

If you did manual exposure, you can try this.

Take a photo using your own exposure settings.
Then take the same shot with auto exposure. Compare them.
I believe you will find the photo with your own settings darker than the one in auto mode.

I don't really know how to explain "stop" clearly just by describing it. Say if under the same shutter speed, F8 is one stop more than F11 where as F8 is one stop less than F5.6.

If you keep the aperture the same, then 1/125 is one stop more than 1/250, and is one stop less than 1/60.

"stop" basically means the difference in the amount of light you are letting in between different exposure settings, whether it's by the aperture size or exposure time.

 

[molested_cow]

Auto level in photoshop and bumped up the blue and cyan with color balance, hope you don't mind.

I also think that some of the photos are not in focus because your shutter speed was too slow. 1/200 isn't fast enough to capture fast actions, especially close ones like the one with the speared fish.