Picture taking

[FishWife]

How do all of you get good pictures of stuff in your tanks?

 

I have a decent digital camera, and can set it manually, but it's not an underwater one... can anyone give me their light settings or other tricks of the trade?

 

SORRY... just realized this should go down a few forums... can anyone move it, or just respond here, pls?

Edited October 9, 2007 by FishWife

[Rascal]

How do all of you get good pictures of stuff in your tanks?

 

 

I don't . . . but I'm getting better. Lots of good photographers on the boards here, starting with 143Gadgets, but this link will get you started. It's a pretty good primer I thought.

 

http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html

[squiddly]

I don't . . . but I'm getting better. Lots of good photographers on the boards here, starting with 143Gadgets, but this link will get you started. It's a pretty good primer I thought.

 

http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html

 

Hey, thanks for posting that. I'm going through it now, and especially like the guy's explanation of grey market, and how you can get totally scammed from some online photo purchases. I used to work photo retail and we used to have exactly the same problems with likely the same people via mail order.

 

And by the way, even professional photographers, and those with vast amounts of underwater photography experience can have difficulty with tank photos. Besides the water, there's the glass (or acrylic) that the light has to get through. If you add flash to that, your results aren't always predictable. Manual white balance is essential. If your camera doesn't have it, well there's always photoshop :-).

[FishWife]

My camera does have manual white; I'll take a look. THANKS!

[dhoch]

The two biggest things in my experience to making good tank pictures:

 

1) Set your white balance

 

2) Use a tripod

 

3) Stopping much of the water movement can help greatly

 

4) Make sure your glass is clean

 

Ok so thats 4...

 

Dave

[lancer99]

Melev has some good tips for those (like me) who are photographically challenged: http://www.melevsreef.com/fotos.html

 

-R

[stevil]

1) Use a tripod

2) Don't use a flash

3) Use a tripod

4) Manually focus

5) Use a tripod

6) Don't shoot at a sharp angle from the glass (as dead on as you can get) - the more angled you are to the glass the greater chromatic abberations (blue or red hazing) you'll get.

7) Use a tripod

8) If you want to get fancy, put a black backdrop BEHIND you to avoid reflection on the glass

9) Use a tripod

 

 

 

 

Oh, and a few more things - play around with your aperture settings - try taking a few wide open, and then a few closed down. I always forget which way gives you greater or less depth of field (sharpness throughout the photo vs. out of focus background, sharp subject, out of focus foreground). I think the refraction of light through the glass will through that off too.

 

I think the other thing to experiment is distance of camera from the glass and zooming in, vs. a wide-angle close up or macro.

 

Also, take a boatload of pictures! It's digital after all. The best shots are probably one in 100. Adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust shoot.

 

If your camera doesn't have EXIF data that you can read with your photo tool, then get out the notebook and write down your parameters (fstop, focal length, ISO, white balance settings), and then compare which shots look best once you go through them.

[discretekarma]

I disagree with the no flash and shooting dead on. I shoot with a flash and shoot at an angle so any reflection is not picked up in the picture. I get pretty good pictures. That's with a point and shoot digital camera. When I used my digital SLR and flash mounted on top I got great shots no matter what.