camera's and tank pics

[natereinhold1]

How does everyone get such nice pics from their cameras? i only have a 4.1 mp camera, but ive seen better pics from cell phone cameras. mine are blue washed with no definition and kinda fuzzy.

 

[IslandCrow]

A lot of it comes to the lens, and in that area, SLR (removable lens) cameras excel, but some of the point and shoots seem to do a pretty good job as well. If your camera has a macro setting (usually depicted by a flower), you'll want to use that when taking pictures of individual corals or fish. Also, even though it looks kind of funny to have a point and shoot on a tripod, that can certainly help. Generally, your flash is not going to be useful since it's too close to the lens and will reflect off the glass, so you may have to disable it. As for the color, that can usually be corrected with a photo editing program like Photoshop (and many others). If it's too blue, you'll want to increase the color temperature. It works on the kelvin color temperature scale, so you're probably already familiar with that.

Many of the newer point and shoot cameras have a white balance setting. You'll need to read the users manual on how to set it, but in general, you take a picture of a white or neutral grey object, and the camera uses that to set the white balance. I take something white and waterproof (like a 5g bucket lid) and take a picture of it under the water, angled up about 45 degrees so it reflects the aquarium lighting. If you can do this, you'll generally get better color representation without having to fix it in post processing.

 

[lancer99]

I would second everything IslandCrow said, although I usually use the sand in my tanks to set the white balance.

For me, the thing that made a huge difference was a tripod. That way you can leave the flash off, and the camera can take as long as it wants to to take the pic. You don't need a great one...you can spend $20 or so and that will work.

Oh, and take lots of pics.....good aquarium pics are hard! I would say only 1 of 20 of mine are even worth looking at, and more like 1 of 50 would I show anyone else

-R

 

[natereinhold1]

Thanks a bunch i will try those thing when i get home.

 

[bodeba]

How do i set the white balance using the sand or a white bucket ?

I can only use -2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0 +0.5 +1.0 +1.5 .....


???

 

[IslandCrow]

although I usually use the sand in my tanks to set the white balance.

And in all this time, I never thought about doing that. Man, I feel stupid. Of course, I usually shoot in RAW, so I seldom bother with white balance anyway.

bodeba,
You'll probably have to go into your user manual. What you wrote down looks more like setting something like exposure compensation. Exactly how to set it is different for each camera. For my Canon 40D, you take a picture of the white balance card or whatever you're using first, select manual white balance in the menu and then select the picture you just took. Then, you use the manual white balance setting for future pictures instead of the auto white balance (AWB) or preset white balance settings. You're camera may work similarly, but probably not exactly the same.

And Lancer hit the real secret. Take lots of pictures, and don't be afraid to throw most of them out. If I'm really serious about taking pictures of my tank, I'll usually take 100-200 pictures. I won't even tell you how many are actually keepers.

 

[ser_renely]

mine look ok if I turn my actinics off.