closer

[Reef Bass]

I'm always suggesting people tighten up on their macro shot cropping and so I'd thought I'd take my own advice. These are two shots I've posted before now with tighter cropping. IMHO, they are stronger and more interesting this way.

My AE War Coral

My red and blue acan

 

[klepto]

mmmm the iridescence on your War Coral is beautiful.
Nice up close and personal crop work!

 

[kb27973]

Looking good Ken! The green on your War coral reminds me of the Gak I used to buy for my daughter when she was little.

Ken

 

[truthdesigns]

Ahhh Very Nice!
IMHO they are stronger and more interesting but
it looks like you lost a lot of sharpness on the first pic!
You always have nice colors there reef bass!! How do you
White balance your photos?

 

[Reef Bass]

Thanks guys.

A full frame image sensor and longer macro lens would have helped here so it doesn't have it be such a cropfest.

Yup, that green looks very "gakky".

Justin, looking at #1, I see your point about the sharpness, thanks. I also am seeing what looks like noise or "too croppedness", so I would be reluctant to sharpen further as I think that would only enhance the badness. Probably there is a filter or other image processing algorithm that could smooth it out either before or after further sharpening. I'm still learning / new at the Photoshop thing.

White balancing for me is easy. I shoot in RAW, then when opening the RAW file in post processing, I move the color temperature slider until things look right.

 

[truthdesigns]

what program do you use to adjust your raw image?
I have never shot in Raw sounds like its a must with aquarium shots?

 

[Reef Bass]

I'm using Photoshop CS4.

The simplicity of getting accurate color when shooting pics under high color temperature lighting (like reef tanks) is the gateway to using RAW. Once you've used it, you'll want to use it always for everything.

 

[panic]

I have a war coral too and notice how wicked close you got in that one - very nice! That is a tiny polyp on those guys. Great colors on the acan too. What temp did you move the k slider to on that one?

 

[maroun.c]

Agree on the noise in pic one.
Any reason for it? was the shot a tad underexposed and then correted in PP as that could have cause some noise to appear or was it the ISO?

 

[Reef Bass]

I shot it at ISO 100, so I don't think that's the issue. To me, it's so tightly cropped that noise is apparent. Here is the post with the original shot, which itself was cropped some. war coral thread

 

[Gig 'em]

whoa!! crazy wicked photos!