Sanjay Joshi's article "Macro Photography for Coral Reef Aquariums" in Reefs Magazine

[Gatortailale]

http://www.reefsmagazine.com/forum/reefs-magazine/151543-macro-photography-coral-reef-aquariums.html

 

[Enkay]

This is a great article but it talks about a lot of equipment which most of us (me included) dont have. I have seen picturs posted here which are taken with a phone camera which are absolutely awesome.

 

Whenever I have tried to take pictures, all I get is blurry blues. If I put a lot of white light, the colors get all washed out.

 

Can someone who is an expert write up a simple "Pictures of corals for dummies" and help people like me out ?

 

Thanks!

[Origami]

I can get decent pictures from my digital SLR using a custom white balance setting, but there's really no such thing as custom white balance on my Android phone. There's a range of white balance selections, but none for "blue reef." Thus, I always get really blue pictures (because my lights are really blue). The best setting that I'll use is for cloudy days. Even then, it's really blue.

 

Some thoughts from a decidedly non-expert on the subject: If you can customize your white balance, do so. This is really important. Otherwise you'll be trying to adjust color balance in post processing. Turn off your pumps so things don't move so much. Use a macro lens if you have one. If you don't, then a compromise might be to buy a set of close-up lenses. Open up the aperture some, while slowing the shutter speed. This will help give you a deeper range of focus. Use a tripod to keep the camera steady (since you slowed the shutter speed). Take lots of pictures - bracket exposures if you can to give you a choice of exposures to select from.

 

(edit: Oh, and if possible, use a remote shutter release or at least use the camera's timer shot so that you don't have to touch the camera when the picture is taken. This helps to make sure that the camera's actually steady.)

[wade]

For those with cameras that will shoot raw mode - do it.  You can always adjust the white balance and exposure settings in editing programs (lightroom, photoshop, etc).  I use them to adjust my pictures taken under my radions (they are running 10%, so around 10k) in post-production.

 

I also asked Sanjay personally what lenses he's using and he typically uses 60mm or 100mm macro lenses.

[howaboutme]

Don't forget that all of the camera settings, lenses and post production won't matter unless you or the audience have calibrated monitors (and printers if you print). What you see will most definitely be slightly (maybe even more) different than what I would see as our monitors are all set up differently. An external (as opposed to the internal/software one that sometimes comes w/ your computer) calibration device will calibrate and set up a color profile for your monitor to see the true color. But you will have to calibrate regularly as your monitor will loose calibration over time.