1st Reef Tank Photos Help with Wash Out

[spanglish]

Here are my first attempts at aquarium photography.
Any hints on light wash out?

 

[spanglish]

 

[spanglish]

 

[gregr]

What camera and settings did you use? Your photos look nice and sharp by the way.

 

[jwedehase]

I always shoot purposely underexposed by one or two stops (-1/3 or -2/3 EV) to alleviate this problem myself.

And I'd have to agree, at least the photos are nice and sharp, which is missing more often than not from reef photos.

 

[Aliie]

I want to know how you get the close up pics. I have tried every setting on the camera I can think of and can't get a close up with out it getting blurry or washed out too.

 

[Aliie]

[/IMG]
DUH! It would help if I put the pic on here huh?

 

[spanglish]

Thanks, I use a 300mm lens for some close ups.
It's not a macro so I set tripod like 4 feet from tank
and do full zoom. I want a macro lens, but have already
spent too much on this toy so I'll make do for a while.

 

[spanglish]

I use a Canon EOS Rebel XT. I bought it last summer
after having the film version for years.

 

[Wrench]

Your photos look good! The problem lies in the cameras metering system. In the second photo the camera metered off of the coral in the center. In order to properly expose the main subject, the camera chose aperture and shutter speeds that caused an overexposure of the brighter part of the frame which in this case is the substrate. You can either change the metering mode from spot or center-weighted to evaluative. This will help. It will use light information from the entire frame to figure out the setting as opposed to properly exposing the center and forgetting about the rest. The other option, like stated above, would be to underexpose the shot by 1/2 or 1 full stop. This could leave the main subject too dark. Or you could always re-compose the shot in a way that eliminates the bright substrate from the frame.

Hope this helps without confusion.

 

[Aliie]

Hey guys thanks! I found the macro on my camera today and I'm goiing to see how that works.

 

[Wrench]

That may help you a bit, but those "creative modes" as Canon calls them usually dont give you the flexibility you'll need. I normally find myself shooting in Av mode. You pick the aperture based on the subject and what kind of DOF you want and the camera will set the shutter speed. Shooting in this mode (as well as P, Tv and M) also lets you adjust type of metering, ISO, AF points and type of AF (AI , servo, etc.). When shooting in Macro mode you wont have the ability to change the ISO or use custom white balance. Also I'm sure you already know that for the corals and slow moving objects you're going to want to use a tripod. Pretty much anything below shutter speed of 500.

 

[Blazer88]

I don't agree that you'll need a tripod for anything under 500, I get crisp shots at 1/80 all the time without a tripod. I stick to aperture priority when shooting corals since DOF is the most important and I always use a tripod. I use shutter priority when shooting fish and set it to like 1/80 or 1/120'ish, bump up ISO to 400 or 800, and don't use a tripod. I only use the creative modes so I can shoot RAW+jpeg. And I wouldn't use the camera's macro function, that's not going to change the minimum focusing distance on the lens. You should be able to get decent macro's using Av with the kit lens.

 

[Lpabsolute]

I like the 1st pic

 

[spanglish]

I use Av mainly. I want Santa to bring me a canon
100mm macro!

 

[cybertec69]

Re: 1st Reef Tank Photos Help with Wash Out

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8687720#post8687720 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spanglish
Here are my first attempts at aquarium photography.
Any hints on light wash out?

use a tripod, and also try to use some type of editing software, I use Nikon Capture and Nikon Color Efex Pro 2.0 with my Nikon.