How to take pics under actinics?

[THE ROOK]

I borrowed a Minolta digital camera from my girl. I believe it's a DiMage Z6, 6 megapixel with 12x optical zoom.
http://www.amazon.com/Konica-Minolt...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1248445231&sr=8-1

I've got no experience with cameras. I want to take some tight coral shots under the actinics lights but can't find the right settings. The pics are really color washed from the blue light.

Any help would be great.

 

[JHemdal]

First off, I don't have personal experience with that camera, so hopefully somebody else here has....

I've always had difficulty adjusting the white balance enough in-camera to compensate for Actinics, or even 20,000k halides. I suppose shooting in RAW and doing it post-production would work, but I don't know if the Minolta can do that.

My quick fix is to use enough flash to blow out the blue cast, but with a built-in flash like that, I don't think you'll have enough juice, and the flash reflection will be problematic.

Jay

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Ah the Z6. The last camera Minolta ever made. Unfortunately it can't shoot RAW so your blue images might be a bit of a problem. There simply may not be any right settings on that camera. What you are trying to do is out of its physical limitations. Can you adjust white balance (k rating) in camera? Do you have Adobe Photoshop? I think it may be your saving grace. Even if you have Photoshop, you will need some real talent to make the colors look like they should.

 

[THE ROOK]

Thanks for the info. She also has a nice Sony digital with interchangable lenses. Is it possible that one would work better for this task? If so, do I need a specific lense?

 

[vbjimmie]

I'm guessing the sony is an alpha series? if so, use that.


Also, for white balance issues, try taking a picture and using that pic to set your custom white balance.

On canons it's the WB setting that looks like a square between two wedges.