Where do you set your white balance?

[davelin315]

I have the same problem that Jason has with his camera but am slowly finding settings that work better. Unfortunately, I don't have a macro lens so it makes it a bit more difficult to get the accurate pictures, but I do OK with the lens I have.

 

Anyway, I have been setting the white balance to fluorescent at a + rating recently to see if this helps with the pictures. It has done a lot better job, but I'm finding that the picture turns out fairly dark. If I shoot it at Aperature priority, it tends to get to be too bright and the white balance settings don't seem to make any difference at all. I get the best shots at Shutter priority but again, the pictures turn out to be quite dark compared to what I want, but the colors seem to be more accurate. Here's some examples:

 

Aperature Priority, White Balance on Fluorescent +2 or +3 (can't remember which one):

 

Shutter Priority, White Balance on Fluorescent +2 or +3 (can't remember which one):

 

For both, the ISO was set at 640 equivalent. Should this make a difference in the sharpness of the picture, set it higher? lower?

 

Thanks for feedback, if you can take a really great shot with a Nikon D series or similar camera with blue lights, let me know what your settings are so I can play around.

[Brian Ward]

I have the same problem that Jason has with his camera but am slowly finding settings that work better. Unfortunately, I don't have a macro lens so it makes it a bit more difficult to get the accurate pictures, but I do OK with the lens I have.

 

Anyway, I have been setting the white balance to fluorescent at a + rating recently to see if this helps with the pictures. It has done a lot better job, but I'm finding that the picture turns out fairly dark. If I shoot it at Aperature priority, it tends to get to be too bright and the white balance settings don't seem to make any difference at all. I get the best shots at Shutter priority but again, the pictures turn out to be quite dark compared to what I want, but the colors seem to be more accurate. Here's some examples:

 

For both, the ISO was set at 640 equivalent. Should this make a difference in the sharpness of the picture, set it higher? lower?

 

Thanks for feedback, if you can take a really great shot with a Nikon D series or similar camera with blue lights, let me know what your settings are so I can play around.

 

 

 

Dave,

 

 

 

You probalby know most of this, but there might be a few tips here to get your pictures better, so bare with me.

 

 

 

You always want your ISO (sensitivity) as low as possible. Bright daylight pictures are taken at ISO 100 as this creates the fewest artifacts in the picture. Having a low sensitivity can cause the shutter time to increase (if you're using an auto mode) though under MH lighting I wouldn't expect it to be so high that you can no longer hand-hold the camera. Though a monopod or tripod would probably be helpful.

 

 

 

Have you looked at manually calibrating your WB for aquarium shots? Generally the WB setting will allow you to take a picture of a plain white piece of paper to set what the camera recognizes as "white". If you calibrate white with a white paper (i'd use printer paper with a 92 or higher brightness rating, or possibly pick up some card stock) lit with your MH light maybe this would help?

 

 

 

The coloring looks a lot better in Shutter Priority mode. This mode allows you to set the shutter speed and then the camera chooses the aperture:

 

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/E...Priority_01.htm

 

Look at the details of what the camera set for this picture. Go to full manual mode, set the shutter speed and aperture to match what the camera selected, focus the frame manually and see if you can reproduce the picture the camera took in auto mode.

 

 

 

Aperture affects exposure and depth of field. I think this is what you're struggling with and the reason your coral doesn't look sharp. In the aperture priority picture, you have a lot of motion blur from bubbles, etc in the tank but the coral looks sharp.

 

With aperture, each step you increase the aperture halves the amount of light hitting the CCD (digital film). A higher aperture increases the depth of field:

 

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/O...of_Field_01.htm

 

There is also a DOF calculator on that page. I'm guessing you're looking for 2-5cm (20-50mm) in DOF.

 

 

 

In order to balance these effects, you probably want to set the aperture very high (f/8), the zoom very low - probably no higher than 50mm - the lower the zoom, the larger the possible depth of field (you can account for this by taking at very high resolution and cropping the picture with photoshop), and lower the shutter speed until the exposure is what you're looking for. I'd start with 1/250 for shutter speed - increase the speed to darken the picture, decrease to lighten. This is probably going to necessitate a tripod. Since you'll need the aperture set very high (very small amount of light hitting the CCD) you'll need a much lower (slower) shutter speed to allow an adequate quantity of light (light over time) to strike the CCD, exposing the picture.

 

 

 

I think most of that was coherent. Please post your results - I'm very interested. Let me know if you didn't understand anything. I don't have a good digital SLR yet, so these suggestions are based on theory since I read a lot about a lot of different things but haven't had enough life experience to apply all my theoretical knowledge

[Rascal]

I'll add this link to the one Brian already posted, an excellent tutorial if you haven't already seen it. http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html At the end he includes a section specific to reef tank photos.

 

I muddled my way to a similar process that Brian describes. I start in "P" - program - mode so I can manually set the white balance, turn off the flash, and then let the camera pick the aperture and shutter speed. Then I switch to "M" - manual - mode and adjust to get the exposure I want. For maximum clarity I usually go with the highest aperture setting my camera will allow (to get the most depth of field) and then adjust shutter speed to get the right exposure. A $20 tri-pod from radio shack made all the difference here for me, allowing me to use slow enough shutter speeds without getting a lot of blur. Another tip is to set the timer to 2 - 3 seconds so that the picture isn't blurred from your hand shaking the camera.

 

For fish shots I pretty much do the opposite. I set the shutter speed as fast as I can get it without getting too narrow a depth of field. I have read that the best way to shoot fish is to to try to track them as they move and let the camera focus on their eyes. That is undoubtedly true, but neither I nor my equipment is nearly that good. The best fish shots I ever got were taken by setting the camera on the tri-pod pointed at the center area of the tank, and then sticking some nori on a clip and adding some mysis to get everyone out and moving. I then set the the shooting mode to "C" - continuous - and let the camera take a ton of shots. After that it was just a matter of cropping the results to get the photos I liked.

[Brian Ward]

Another thing to look at, Dave, is to use the bracketing function on the camera. That will take a series of 3 shots using 3 different camera modes. Every picture is stamped with the settings used to take it so you can review the settings and dial-in something better. Make sure you pay attention to the zoom on your lens. Lenses all behave very differently at different zoom levels (low range, 28mm will typically create a fish-eye effect, high range, 75mm or 120mm will have distortion in other areas). You typically want to take your shots at the mid-point of the lens's range. Look around online for some info on whatever lens you're using. Depending on quality