Help with settings, shooting macro

[Rogger Castells]

let me start by telling you that i know absolutely zero as far as photography language but I have been able to locate some of the setting and rings on the lens that appear to be what i need to start messing with.
Now the gear, I have a nikon D90 and just purchased a used nikon micro 105mm f2.8 AIS lens.
I am shooting my corals but cannot get true colors and very poor quality with this lens. here is a sample

I would like to know what could be good starting settings and what to play up and down with and what not to touch, also should I be using flash?
Please help

 

[Recty]

Have you read through the last couple pages of this forum? I swear this question gets asked every day or two.

As far as your picture being poor quality, I think it looks pretty good really... it's dark and very blue, but that can be fixed. I tried it out on your photo which is shown below.

If that's all you're talking about, you just need a program that can adjust your white balance. There are a couple free ones out there, I happen to use Photoshop which is not free.

 

[Rogger Castells]

Yes I have read them but I can't see the same question being asked nor do i see an answer for what I have asked, it is definitely not how to adjust the picture with outside programs but to actually learn the correct programing on a current camera with an old manual lens.

 

[Recty]

You're going to have a difficult, if not impossible, time getting your colors correct without using "outside programming" of some sort. There are in camera settings called white balance that you can set but it never is quite accurate enough for trying to fix the blue color most reefs use in their lighting.

 

[wetWolger]

Your best bet is to stop trying to get the colour balance right in the camera and to start shooting RAW. Aquarium lights are very very difficult to get a proper white balance from the camera (at least IME). I always have the most consistent and best results with shooting RAW and doing the white balance after the fact on the computer..

As far as the image quality it looks pretty damn good to me.

 

[Hookup]

There are some actuall photographers (serious hobbiest, semi-pro and pros on this fourm) who might comment and/or correct this suggestion.

You could try to get a Macbeth grey card, shoot it in your tank and adjust your on-camera WB to match. The depth of the subject in the water could be a factor though in being consistent.

This really is about 6seconds of work in something like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom... Ok, call it 1min going from card-reader -> computer -> wb adjustment -> output file... for a single photo... if you have a bunch, you can bulk-load, and bulk adjust, and bulk output and really save time.

 

[Azn_in_az]

photoshop is the way to go

 

[xtm]

Yes I have read them but I can't see the same question being asked nor do i see an answer for what I have asked, it is definitely not how to adjust the picture with outside programs but to actually learn the correct programing on a current camera with an old manual lens.

Rogger, the D90 can NOT meter off of old AI-S Nikkors (the "unchipped" ones) unlike the D200, D300, etc. You will have to manually set the aperture using the aperture ring on the lens and shoot in Manual mode, while guessing the correct exposure. There is nothing wrong with manual lenses and in fact they are optically very good for the money, but if you are just starting out in photography, they are very tricky to use. Once you get familiar with the relationship between Aperture and Shutter speeds, then it will all make sense.

My suggestion would have been a Nikkor 105 AF-D/G, 60 AF-D/G, or a Tamron 90/Sigma 105--- these are "chipped" which means they can send metering info to your camera and generally will make your life easier. Don't resort to fixing photos in post processing.. you need to learn how to properly nail an exposure from the get go. Another alternative is to use an incident light meter (we won't get into that).

That being said, you need to shoot in Manual mode, ISO 400, on a tripod. Set it to f/22 and just adjust the shutter speed (manually) until you nail a properly exposed image. No photoshopping can restore data that is not there to begin with. The image you posted looks very good-- but you could have stopped down some more to give the edges more detail.

Let me know how it goes.

Here's a good thread for you to read about D90 and AI-S glasses
http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikkor/discuss/72157607579474948/