Canon 40D Taking Tank Pictures Advise Please

I got my first DSLR Canon 40D two weeks ago, and just now that I have the time to play with it.

This is what I got and will upgrade my lens in the near future:
Canon EOS 40D Black 10.1 MP 3.0" 230K LCD Digital Camera with EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Zoom Lens

- giving what I have now, I would like to take pictures of my tank (FTS) and close up shots of my fish and corals.

- I need help with camera Manual settings with the Lens that came with the camera.

- remember that this is my first DSRL so please be specific.

- also, if you can pick one very nice Lens for this camera, what would it be.

Thanks! :rollface:
 
Well with that lens, your going to need a tripod. The long focal length and small aperture won't do well with hand holding in less than optimal conditions. Until you get a tripod try hand holding in "Av" mode. Zoom the lens all the way out (28-50mm range) and set your aperture to f/3.5.

For your next lens I would recommend a Canon 100mm Macro.
 
You want to get the fastest shutter speed you can even with the tripod. Especially if the fish are moving around and you don't want blurs (within reason of course, 1/1000th may be overkill - depends on the subject and your goal). If you are a few feet from the tank even at F3.5 you will likely have enough DOF (depth of field) to get everything in focus (if not you can go up to F5.6 or maybe even F8 but you'll need a bright tank or a high ISO setting) F8-F11 tend to be the sweet spot on a lens but it is not always possible to use it and get the shutter speed you need

Look in the manual about how to set the exposure bracketing. Then you can take the one shot, plus one over and one underexposed. It will help you get to understand about expoures and the metering. It's digital, go crazy. The beauty of digital (besides that it's essentially free after you're purchase is it saves all the exposure information). Look at you photos and what you like/ don;t like and compare to the data. Shutter speed slow and cause thing blurred? F stop wide (F2.5) and things not sharp front to back? Experiment and have fun.
 
For reef stuff, no doubt the 100mm. For general all around lens I prefer the 24-105mm. We had a good chat about this on Recty's thread here somewhere in the forums recently. No doubt the 24-70 is a steller lens (as you can see by the images turned out by the aformentioned trio and others), but I like to have a little extra reach and the IS too for my "one" walk about lens. Just my 2 cents.
 
I was actually able to get some pretty decent close ups with my 24-70... nothing amazing and definitely not a macro, but pretty good for all around shooting and able to get close too.

hermit001.jpg

snail001.jpg


The best thing is I dont have to use a flash with this lens.
 
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