how to shoot...?

[kimmi.kim]

Hi Everyone, i am currently shooting with a nikon d40. my tank has 2 actinics and 2 white lights, and whenever i take pictures, they turn out really really blue. anyone have this problem? how do u fix it or take nice pictures? does anyone change their white balance?
thanks.

 

[NikonGuy]

Yes, you definitely want to change the white balance. I believe the D40 has a kelvin system built in so adjust it to 10,000k for shooting under actinics. If not, do a custom white balance or shoot in raw and change it after. Please do share, but make sure you really enjoy the process of it all. And welcome to the dark side fellow nikonian haha.

 

[Slakker]

Always shoot in RAW and edit it in post processing when you have the option.

 

[kimmi.kim]

thanks NikonGuy and Slakker, i'll try that when i get home tonight.

 

[klepto]

Kim-
i havent had many issues w/ blue casts while shooting in auto white balance on my d50.. its possible you have your white balance set differently, I would make sure it is on auto for starters.

but definitely shooting in raw and adjusting your color temp in ps camera raw or another raw program is the preferred route.

 

[Iostream]

Auto white balance is always hit or miss when shooting my tanks. I tend to shoot raw and fix the WB afterwards. You can also shoot with a grey card reference shot. Shooting raw makes white balance modification painless...

 

[kimmi.kim]

i tried a few shots last nite in raw and adjusting it in photoshop later. the color did come out better, but it was still very blue.
here's how one turned out:

it doesnt show the 'true' color of the anemone...
but before i did always have my white balance on auto..

 

[IPT]

Your white balance is way off. I was able to dial it in somewhat in PS using a color balance layer. You should be able to do it first pass in RAW.

 

[IPT]

needed to add a LOT of yellow, magenta, and some red. It was so off I actually had to use two seperate layers!

 

[kimmi.kim]

whoa! thanks IPT! that picture is way better! haha, im not that experienced with PS...i'll practice some more

 

[spankey]

I shoot with a D40 and use Auto balance and the tank has a small hint of blue. I then use Picassa and use Nikon's ViewNX to adjust the white balance automatically and it takes the blue out of the photo perfectly. You can download the ViewNX from Nikon's site. I shoot in RAW too as others have mentioned which allows ViewNX to process the photo. You can even select multiple photos and batch convert too.

Good luck!

 

[kimmi.kim]

i'll try that out spankey.
i do have viewnx installed in my computer but havent had much experience with shooting raw. how do u adjust it automatically in viewnx? cus it has the same options that u can select on the camera: flourescent, cloudy, sunshine, etc.

 

[IPT]

In my software (which is Canon's) you can scroll thru those options and see the the change live. I don;t always chose the one that is correct (like cloudy) but the one that makes the image look like what I saw. Alos there is usually a "color temp" slider that you can use and cover a large and custom WB's with to best meet your needs. Not sure if that software has it or not, or if you just want auto (which I don't like because it doesn't "look" at things the way I do). Just my 2 cents.