How to take AWESOME pics!

[GrimReefer82]

OK, I see all of these tank of the month pics and some awesome pics from non-winners. How the heck do you get pics like that? I truly wish that I could get pics of mine that looked anywhere near the same. Pics of mine are ugly but the real thing isn't. Anyone have any tips to get better pics out of a lesser camera? Is there a certain setting on the camera or a certain spectrum of light that makes the colors show? Or do you guys photo shop the pics or something?

 

[Sea Polar]

1. tripod

 

[GrimReefer82]

a tripod wont help the colors tho.....

 

[john90009]

With photography you need to know more about your camera than you know about your self, you need to learn what apertures and iso are better for the shots, also i wish that there was one setting that would take the picture and have it look like i want it to be, but the best thing you can do is take a hundred pictures in different settings and find the pros and cons of each setting. Im new with cameras to and u can read threads and advice all day but in the end you need to play around with the camera to learn it.

 

[GrimReefer82]

Well I know my camera pretty good....maybe its just a piece of crap. Its a NIKON COOLPIX L18..

 

[Flipper62]

If your trying to take close up pics you need to use the MACRO setting. This lets the camera focas in on objects closer then 18 inches away. If you dont use this setting, almost every picture will be blurry.

Also good lighting. The camera will pick up any light that is in that area. What I mean is that if you have normal lighting in the room ( a yellow..ish ) type like a standard 60 watt bulb. That yellow..ish can come out in the picture.

I always take the pics with the room lights off.

As far as the Coolpic cameras, I'm not sure as to what settings they have. I have a Cannon EOS 1Ds...

 

[GrimReefer82]

I'm actually trying to get some full tank shots....what I am wondering is what should the white balance be set to, what color setting, etc. I have been playing with it for 2 hours and cant get the desired results because the color still looks bland.

 

[Flipper62]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15355269#post15355269 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GrimReefer82
I'm actually trying to get some full tank shots....what I am wondering is what should the white balance be set to, what color setting, etc. I have been playing with it for 2 hours and cant get the desired results because the color still looks bland.

Theres not a standerd white ballance setting. It needs to be adjusted depending on the lighting, the Camera & how the picture looks.

Post a picture & let me see it.

 

[GrimReefer82]

Here's a crappy one for ya. The greens and purples aren't even showing.

[/IMG]

 

[laugh]

Turn your pumps off.

 

[WaterssretaW]

get an SLR Camera like the nikon D70. The "point and shoot" cameras just dont cut it.

 

[Puffdragon]

Look at your white balance. I am running T5's over my 120, so I set the white balance to florescent. On my 37, I am running metal halide, so I move white balance to tungsten. This is with a Sony Alpha 200. Digital allows you to see the results immediately. Good idea on turning pumps off. It is nearlt impossible to get a good picture of softies in strong flow.

 

[SunnyX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15355880#post15355880 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterssretaW
get an SLR Camera like the nikon D70. The "point and shoot" cameras just dont cut it.

+1

When I picked up a Nikon D50 SLR it made a world of difference! The smaller point and shoot camera's have a really hard time with aquariums.

 

[DSR]

the key really is the white balance issue in my opinion. Most point and shoots don't allow you to really customize the white balance to any real degree and the factory presets aren't such that they will accomodate the spectrums used in aquarium lighting. I use a canon 40d and shoot in RAW. When I upload the photographs the only modification i do is to set the color temp to 14000 K (to match my lights). The results are pretty true to the actual tank. Also, with a dSLR you have the added benefit of using lenses that allow you to change the aparature. I shoot wide open on all my lenses to avoid having to increase my ISO too much. I never shoot in macro I just keep the camera on manual and make adjustments as necessary. I do, however, use a 100mm fixed focal length macro lens.

 

[tomasga]

I agree, a dSLR would make a world of a difference, I try to shoot all of my photos in RAW as well, I can then take those to Photoshop and adjust from there...

 

[Itaysworld]

Hi All -

I did a write up about taking great aquarium photos on my site.

Take a look, I hope its helpful.

http://itaysworld.com/blog/2008/11/02/taking-great-aquarium-photos/

Best regards.

 

[rando45]

there is also a great write up about photography on melev's site

you need to adjust the white balance

basically, take a piece of new PVC, put it in your tank and set the white balance to that so your camera knows what "white" is under the tank's lighting; then take pics and see how different they look

 

[the_rider]

Itay's website is really great for all the tips I can think of ...

Another point I can add is while shooting film, post editing could be done in the darkroom but nowadays photoshop seems to be a taboo, nobody want to open image in photoshop because thay are "modified" is not what come off of the camera, but with most highend DSLR, when you open RAW images in photoshop, images would look really flat and boring and it what they wanted so you can have the cleaness base to work on.

Picture can be taken "out of the box" and look way more process and unreal then if someone do it genuinly in photoshop.

In your picture, you dont have a lot of contrast, WB is probably off and you have some hot spot. Also the depth of field is not wide enough so everything before and after you point of focus is blurry.

You can still take good picture with a point and shoot but it harder since depending on the model you cannot control everything.

For the WB, you can force camera raw to open jpeg file too, I don't remember if you can change the wb since i never shoot in jpeg but I would have a look tonigh.

Hope it helps a little bit

 

[LoyalConvict]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15357561#post15357561 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tomasga
I agree, a dSLR would make a world of a difference, I try to shoot all of my photos in RAW as well, I can then take those to Photoshop and adjust from there...

photoshop rules!

also you can adjust JPEG files using adobe camera raw. i dont know if this is just on CS3 or what. but any ways, if anyone doesnt know open photoshop goto edit-prefences-general (or ctrl+k) click on file handling and check "prefer Adobe camera Raw for JPEG images" then when you open a jpeg you have the freedom to treat it as a RAW image file, although it isnt as sharp of an image as RAW mode but still usefull.

 

[calkulon]

All of the above plus this. A couple of days prior to taking photos put in fresh carbon. A couple of hours prior to taking photos, slow down the water flow in the tank and turn on a diatom filter to get that gin clear "where is the water" look.