Critique

[patheticsquid]

You can if the front of the lens is against the glass.

Yes, you can do that if you are using a zoom lens or have a good shot with a prime at exactly that distance. Be careful if your lens extends when focusing, or when zooming as you will bump your glass.

 

[SoloGarth]

If you get a reflection with the flash, the lens can't be against the glass.

The reflection was actually from the back glass not the front.

 

[Misled]

Garth, try this for me. Set the camera to AP, have the comp wheel set to the middle, shoot at about f16, pop up the on camera flash, turn the lights to about 20 for white, 10 for blue, take the camera off the tripod and move it up so the lens is touching the glass when it's focused on the coral and take a shot.

 

[Misled]

The reflection was actually from the back glass not the front.

Turn down the f-stop, (higher number), or turn down the comp wheel.

 

[SoloGarth]

Garth, try this for me. Set the camera to AP, have the comp wheel set to the middle, shoot at about f16, pop up the on camera flash, turn the lights to about 20 for white, 10 for blue, take the camera off the tripod and move it up so the lens is touching the glass when it's focused on the coral and take a shot.

I just did. Will post some pics in a bit. I had to use the kit lens as the 50mm couldnt focus on it at that distance.

 

[SoloGarth]

Critique

With flash. A nice shot thanks some tweaking is necessary but I can see how I might get good color that way. It may be too difficult to not have it show up brown.

 

[Misled]

That may not help you, but even if it doesn't here's something you need to understand about reef ligting You may have the camera WB set at 20k. That sounds like the sensor should be able to cope with what you see, but it still can't. The high color temp overwelms the sensor, mostly in the upper blue ranges. The blues of LED's even make this worse. The blue penitrates the water better than the other LED colors. That's why you get the "flair" you see that looks over exposed. Keep dropping the blue dial till it evens out. It's not what your eyes see that's in the pics, it's what the sensor sees.

 

[Misled]

With flash. A nice shot thanks some tweaking is necessary but I can see how I might get good color that way. It may be too difficult to not have it show up brown.

You may be able to adjust some in LR or PS with the tint slider.

 

[SoloGarth]

You may be able to adjust some in LR or PS with the tint slider.

Yes that is post adjustment, the most color I could pull out without making it appear too doctored (with my level LR skills at least). The raw pic was pretty much totally brown (that light combo is probably 5500k in appearance). Have to work out a compromise between the 2 methods I think.

 

[Misled]

You should be able to back down the comp wheel a few clicks. This should lessen the output of the flash.

 

[SoloGarth]

Yeah for sure. Experimenting with the flash and tank lighting will be the next step. It is unfortunate that I can't use the better lens though and be against the glass. I'll need to experiment with that as well.

 

[SoloGarth]

So I wanted to thank everyone for their help. What I have come to . . . believe is that the LED lighting settings makes little difference. The picture below I am fairly happy with (still could use some tweaking of my method but I'm getting there).

1/25" F8.0 ISO100 using Yongnou 560iV w/blue gel. LED lighting ~20000K