A few shots from my LFS

Blazer88

Premium Member
I was asked to take some pictures at my local LFS (barrierreefaquariums.com) for their website/displays and thought you guys might enjoy. I've never taken shots at an LFS before but they were very helpful with turning pumps off and helping to reduce the reflections. I took about 350 shots and am still working through them but here is a start. Enjoy!

Here is the fully gallery:
http://parchen.smugmug.com/gallery/5301488_WSVjv

Here are a few of my favorites.

1) Copperband Butterfly from their display tank
IMG_5712-Edit.jpg


2) Bright Anthias
IMG_5450-Edit.jpg


3) Sand goby with a mouthful of sand
IMG_5692-Edit.jpg


4) Clown Tang
IMG_5704-Edit.jpg


5) Wrasse
IMG_5470-Edit.jpg
 
A few of my favorite coral shots:

6) A hungry Dendo
IMG_5536-Edit.jpg


7) A cool brain looking thing
IMG_5575-Edit.jpg


8) I believe this is a goniopora
IMG_5631-Edit.jpg


9) A massive Elegance coral
IMG_5565-Edit.jpg


10) One of many SPS colonies
IMG_5567-Edit.jpg
 
Wow. LFS I’ve seen in my area aren’t half the caliber as that. Beautiful stuff!
 
I LOVE the first shot of the copper banded butter fly. While I wish there was just a tad more DOF to include the mouth, you still nailed it.
 
AWESOME!! Flash used for the fish shots, or just high ISO and wide open?
 
Rick,

First off: GREAT photos!

Second, I was just reading in the TOM thread about your post processing and was wondering if you could post a before and after shot for comparison purposes. As someone said in that thread, I'd like to know how good my pics straight out of the camera should be.

TIA,
Robb
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12904580#post12904580 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitusvileSurfer
I LOVE the first shot of the copper banded butter fly. While I wish there was just a tad more DOF to include the mouth, you still nailed it.

I totally agree about the DOF but I thought it was still pretty cool how the eyes everything else that was in focus turned out. The just goes to show how narrow the DOF of the Sigma 150mm is even at F/6.3.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12908899#post12908899 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by IPT
AWESOME!! Flash used for the fish shots, or just high ISO and wide open?

No flash, just available light. Most are high ISO and some are wide open, it really depends on which tank I was shooting. Their main display tank was pretty bright which allowed for a smaller f/stop. #5 was shot from one of their fish-only displays that only had a T5 or two for light, that shot was @ F/2.8. Fast glass goes a long way when shooting.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12909577#post12909577 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Robb in Austin
Rick,

First off: GREAT photos!

Second, I was just reading in the TOM thread about your post processing and was wondering if you could post a before and after shot for comparison purposes. As someone said in that thread, I'd like to know how good my pics straight out of the camera should be.

TIA,
Robb

Post processing can't really take a bad shot and make it a good one, only a good one and make it better. The shots from the camera should be sharp and well exposed. Processing the RAW gives the most flexibility but it still has limitations. Most of my processing is pretty simple. Cleaning up any specs in the water probably takes the most time. Other than that, it's mainly curves/level adjustments, a few filters, and crop/sharpening. I'll see if I can dig up a few before and after examples.

Thanks to everyone else for the comments!
 
Second, I was just reading in the TOM thread about your post processing and was wondering if you could post a before and after shot for comparison purposes. As someone said in that thread, I'd like to know how good my pics straight out of the camera should be.

Ditto on your request being the one who said that in that post. Still that is by no mean an accuse of over processing which sometimes requires more skill than taking a picture.



The just goes to show how narrow the DOF of the Sigma 150mm is even at F/6.3.

Could it be that you were shooting at very close distance which should enhance the bouquet even at smaller apertures?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910818#post12910818 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maroun.c
Ditto on your request being the one who said that in that post. Still that is by no mean an accuse of over processing which sometimes requires more skill than taking a picture.

Could it be that you were shooting at very close distance which should enhance the bouquet even at smaller apertures?

Sorry about that, I must have missed that request from the other thread or simply forgot about it. Do you remember if that was any one picture that you would care to see the original of from this thread or the TOTM thread? I'll be happy to post any un-processed jpeg. And I was pretty close to the CBB when I took that shot as the picture wasn't much of a crop.
 
Rick certainly knows this already, but especially when shooting RAW nearly every image can be improved through processing. That's basically the point of using RAW.

If you shoot jpg, the camera IS processing the image. It's adjusting contrast, sharpness, saturation, noise, etc.... When shooting RAW, all of those things still need to be done. The difference is that you've got creative control over the process.

Letting the camera do it is like Ansel Adams dropping his film off at Costco. :)
 
No accusation on my part either. Just curious.

Ansel Adams and Costco in the same sentence?! Who'd a thunk that would ever happen! Great analogy!
 
No specific Pic Blazer just the whole Idea of an unprocessed and processed shot would be just good to know what to aspire to on the camera level.
Regarding the bouqueh I remember reading a bit about it and it seems it's not only the aperture that matters but the focal distance used and the distance to your object. If I'm not mistaken
the larger the aperture, less the focal length and less the lens to subject distance the more the blurr.
 
Here are some editing examples from the above pictures. The original un-processed jpeg (straight from the camera) is on top. I really try to get the best shot that I can from the camera to lessen any time PP'ing. Hopefully the editing isn't over the top.

Edit-3.jpg


Edit-2.jpg


Edit-1.jpg


And this last one was a bit tougher. If it wasn't obvious, the CBB has a bad eye. It came to the LFS like this and they have been rehabbing it back to health. I liked the composition so I wasn't going to let a bad eye get in they of, what I thought, was a pretty good pic. The PP job isn't perfect but I only spend a minute or two to get the "new eye" as-is. I doubt most people would be able to tell otherwise.

CBB.jpg
 
Blazer wonderful shots bro! The work you do is an art and I appreciate it thoroughly! I reall like the CB pic even though the DOF was not great. Actually to me that's what makes the shot so unique. Also I would have never noticed the new eye. That was a wonderful job! I know I use PS for a lot of things and the way you enhanced your pics are not an easy fix. It takes time and you did great. To me your examples are what post processing is all about and if anyone thinks that is cheating then they know little about photography.
 
Interesting seeing the before and after, thanks for sharing.

I wouldn't say it is over the top editing.

Do you do the same for your non-fish photos?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12913004#post12913004 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RevHtree
Blazer wonderful shots bro! The work you do is an art and I appreciate it thoroughly! I reall like the CB pic even though the DOF was not great. Actually to me that's what makes the shot so unique. Also I would have never noticed the new eye. That was a wonderful job! I know I use PS for a lot of things and the way you enhanced your pics are not an easy fix. It takes time and you did great. To me your examples are what post processing is all about and if anyone thinks that is cheating then they know little about photography.

Thanks for the comments Rev, I appreciate it. I agree on the comment about the processing, anyone who takes photography seriously will have to learn processing at one point or another. The camera doesn't always capture something exactly the way that I envision it, processing helps accomplish that goal.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12913045#post12913045 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Robb in Austin
Interesting seeing the before and after, thanks for sharing.

I wouldn't say it is over the top editing.

Do you do the same for your non-fish photos?

Just about anything I post will have some sort of editing, one way or the other. You can search some of my other threads that I've posted in here or on my smugmug (red house) to see my other stuff. I mostly do landscapes when I'm not aiming at fish tanks.
 
I really need to spend more time in this forum. ;) MAN-O-MAN, wonderful amazing shots, one after another. And you even found a way to FIX a CBB - if you could just put one in my next Full Tank Shot, that would be awesome. :lol:

PM sent. :D
 
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