help with macro's

[JGoslee]

I got my canon XT around Christmas time along with the canon 100mm macro lens. I've been slowly getting better at taking pics but I'm still having trouble with a few things. I have a hard time getting the camera settings right for the amount of light that is over my tank. I usually have to put a piece of plastic on top of my tank to block out some of the light to get a decent pic. Is there something I can do with the camera settings that would help? I also have problems with my processing. I use DxO Optics elite to convert my pics from raw to jpeg and then I use paintshop to resize the pics. When ever I try to correct a photo it usually looks fake. So I just use the DxO auto processing. Here's a few pics I took recently. If someone could give me some feedback on how I could have made the pics better that would be great. I had the camera on aperture priority, iso 200-400, f12-20. Thanks

 

[beatle]

You might try some negative exposure compensation to keep from blowing highlights. Drop your ISO down and drag the shutter. I assume you're using a tripod. You definitely don't want to block out light. Hopefully the more experienced photographers will reply.

 

[Blazer88]

As beatle said, you can adjust your exposure compensation to make sure you don't blow out any highlights. You shouldn't have to block any light from the corals to take the shot as the camera should meter it and adjust the shutter speed to get proper exposure. Take a shot, check the histogram, and them make any adjustments you need to. Your settings look good on those two shots (F/9, ISO 100) so I don't think you need to change anything there.

I'm guessing any problems that you are having are with your post-processing since you are starting with a sharp picture. Is there a way you can send me one of those RAW files and I can mess around with it? As long as the highlights aren't blown and you start with a sharp picture (yours look good to start), it should turn out how you want it to.