Or Actinics..
So,
After getting incredibly frustrated looking at all these amazing coral shots showing amazing flouro colours under blue/actinic lights, and not being able to figure out how on earth they managed to capture the shots, I did some research and worked it out. Thought I'd share with you how to do it.
You will likely need a digital SLR though..
The first shot here is a shot of my orange fungia, under normal lights, easy enough to photograph although I still had to adjust a little in Lightroom.
Now, when I turn just the blue/purple lighting on, this thing glows pink/orange. The following awful shot was my first attempt at trying to get a photo of it, using Auto white balance on the camera.
So, I tried changing the WB around from auto, to cloudy to fluorescent to 10,000 kelvin, nothing worked, I managed a little luck with my green corals, but nothing with this guy.
I did some reading.. tried a bunch of techniques and this is the one that worked.
1. Turn whatever lights you want to take photos under, on.
2. Put a white piece of paper under the lights, and take a photo of it (keeping WB on auto, or play around if you want). You can also use a plate.
3. In your Menu, you'll likely have the option to select 'Custom WB' - Hit this button.
4. It should take you into your taken images, and straight to the photo of the paper (which, will look blue). Hit select, and the camera will ask if you want to use that image for WB, hit yes. It will then tell you to change your WB setting to 'Custom' which is a little symbol with two triangles either side of a circle usually.You
5. You then need to go back into your Menu settings and into the WB options, scroll till you get to the custom icon and select it.
Now, when you take your images, your WB will be correct and won't be washing out all your images with blues.
This is the same coral again, after I have adjusted my WB, MUCH better, but still not perfect, this can be fixed in post processing.
I hope this helps you guys, it's a bit of a pain to do, but getting shots showing how your tank ACTUALLY looks instead of always saying, 'it looks so much better than that'.. is worth it!
Steve
So,
After getting incredibly frustrated looking at all these amazing coral shots showing amazing flouro colours under blue/actinic lights, and not being able to figure out how on earth they managed to capture the shots, I did some research and worked it out. Thought I'd share with you how to do it.
You will likely need a digital SLR though..
The first shot here is a shot of my orange fungia, under normal lights, easy enough to photograph although I still had to adjust a little in Lightroom.
Now, when I turn just the blue/purple lighting on, this thing glows pink/orange. The following awful shot was my first attempt at trying to get a photo of it, using Auto white balance on the camera.
So, I tried changing the WB around from auto, to cloudy to fluorescent to 10,000 kelvin, nothing worked, I managed a little luck with my green corals, but nothing with this guy.
I did some reading.. tried a bunch of techniques and this is the one that worked.
1. Turn whatever lights you want to take photos under, on.
2. Put a white piece of paper under the lights, and take a photo of it (keeping WB on auto, or play around if you want). You can also use a plate.
3. In your Menu, you'll likely have the option to select 'Custom WB' - Hit this button.
4. It should take you into your taken images, and straight to the photo of the paper (which, will look blue). Hit select, and the camera will ask if you want to use that image for WB, hit yes. It will then tell you to change your WB setting to 'Custom' which is a little symbol with two triangles either side of a circle usually.You
5. You then need to go back into your Menu settings and into the WB options, scroll till you get to the custom icon and select it.
Now, when you take your images, your WB will be correct and won't be washing out all your images with blues.
This is the same coral again, after I have adjusted my WB, MUCH better, but still not perfect, this can be fixed in post processing.
I hope this helps you guys, it's a bit of a pain to do, but getting shots showing how your tank ACTUALLY looks instead of always saying, 'it looks so much better than that'.. is worth it!
Steve
