How to take good pictures of bright corals

[dkle]

Hi everybody,

I have been playing with my new camera Canon IS S3. It takes decent pictures, as you can see below

However, there is a particularly bright green mille in the tank that I have trouble taking pictures of. Because it is so bright, all the pictures ended up very blurry, overexposed.

(well, I sharpened the details in these two pictures. That's why they are grainy)
Are there any tricks to deal with this problem? Thanks for your hehp.

 

[gregr]

There's a saying in photography: "expose for the highlights". Those super bright tips are much brighter than the rest of the picture so they are coming out overexposed-- to keep that from happening you need to set negative exposure compensation. I'm pretty sure with that camera you can set compensation in all modes except for full auto. For a starting point try one full stop of negative compensation (-1) and if that's too dark try -2/3, -1/3 etc. If it's still too bright at -1 try -1 1/3 etc etc. Somewhere around -1 it should start to look good.
Beautiful corals by the way.

 

[dkle]

Thanks Greg. here is the new shot

 

[10" Red Devil]

Whoa big difference!

 

[maroun.c]

You got the exposure sorted. One other thing you can do and which is usually done to scenery shots is to take 2-3 shots exposing one correctly and 2 others with increased and decreased exposure and then fusing the 3 pictures in PS or any other processing program you have. you have to use a very good tripod for this to avoid movement betweent he shots which would make it a lot difficult. Its called HDR (high dynamic range) it's not very common in aquarium shots but I see no reason why it would not work in your case. you have to be on manual to avoid differences caused by metering, also you better use manual focus to have identical pictures.
One oher thing I see is distortions in the picture. I sthis take through the glass or from above the tank? if through the glass try shooting perpendicular to the glass and that will improve the picture a lot even if it does not give you the view you desire. you could always put the coral at an angle to adjust the view you want.

 

[clippo]

think these are through the surface shots MC - nice a sharp but I personally prefer seeing corals from the side mostly.

A HDR shot would be a good way to sort the problem (some of the tips still look blown out in the last image to me) but I would think would be very difficult unless you have a tripod with the correct attachment. I've used this technique on acros lots of times.

I guess you could maybe try diffusing the tank lights a bit as an alternative - still good shots anyway - depends how involved you want to get!