Macro musings

[Reef Bass]

I had a burst of image capture and processing. It's coming easier now.

ORA Red Planet

ORA Nathans Green Millepora

Aussie Acans

Another ORA Red Planet. Not the usual perspective.

ORA Borealis

I think this is a Valida. I like this shot particularly.

 

[madisonrose05]

wow
what great shots
i need to get a macro lens

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Stupendous, your ORA Borealis puts on a great show as usual and the ORA Red Planet is a thing of beauty.

 

[klepto]

Wow- very nice macros Ken! Your corals are looking excellent- you definitely have some great subjects to photograph. I especially like the last and 3rd shots- I think the green and purple contrast works very well.
What is your lightsource? sorry if you've been asked already..

 

[Reef Bass]

Thank you very much all.

Yeah TS, I swear my Borealis would make any photographer look like a pro. It's almost funny, because it's not that large, but it just happens to have numerous interesting areas where a macro lens can peer in and capture some image goodness. I am careful to not repeat a shot. Once I'm content (read "no longer too displeased with") with an image, I don't reshoot the same shot ("been there, done that"). However, I've reshot the same shot a number of times trying to get what I was after until I was reasonably satisfied, particularly in my initial period of dSLR ownership.

I think Red Planet has tremendous potential. I look forward to it growing and tabling. A more accurate name for it might be "Deep Magenta Planet", but it's a beauty regardless.

I've always enjoyed gardening and growing things. There will be an off topic posting or three this April and / or May when I can unleash my macro lens on my rose blossoms. Reefkeeping is pretty much underwater gardening where my tank is the garden and my sps are the plants (I know they're animals, just making a loose analogy).

I am very proud of my corals and as some of you have heard me say before that these are my corals which I am growing is part of the large joy I get from making images of them. IMHO, a significant portion of my success with them is due to my lighting - 2 400w 20kK MHs with 2 T5 actinics supplementing. I choose 400w over 250 because my tank is relatively deep (24") and I wanted to get ample light all the way down to the sand bed. In comparison to other tanks I've seen that are lit with 250w halides, my corals seem to have brighter and deeper ("more saturated") colors. Every sps I put in my tank colors up significantly. My ORA Plum Crazy is even more vibrant now than when I brought it home from my lfs. And of course I have to give credit to my lfs and club, without whom I wouldn't have the corals I do.

The 20kK color temp bulbs not only intensified my corals' colors, but my "blue pics" issue as well. After much frustration with custom white balances not getting accurate colors, I tried the advice in this forum and switched to RAW mode and it's been all downhill since (color accuracy wise). Seriously. If you're at all perturbed by a lack of color accuracy with your tank shots, shoot in RAW and set the color temp in software.

With the comparative brightness of 400w (though reef tanks are still relatively dark), I have to watch my exposure and typically have to decrease exposure -1/3 to -1 to keep acro tips from blowing out. As a result I often have to boost brightness and / or lighten darks while post processing to compensate. Doing this allows me to keep detail on what would otherwise be blown out areas. If an area continues to be troublesome, I use the Smart Brush to select the area and reduce the brightness there, though I prefer to get the exposure right to start with.

My macro lens stops down to f32, so I've been playing with f20 as a midrange setting figuring I can get greater depth of field while avoiding potential image quality issues with fully stopped down lenses.

klepto I am fond of those shots as well. The reefkeeper in me loves sps while the photographer in me is developing a huge fondness for lps and zoanthids because of the to me desirable and outrageous combo of color and texture. I just picked up another acan (this one's red and blue!) to join the one in shot 3.

As much as I like the coral in the foreground in the last shot and its colors, for me it's the impact of the background that makes the image. Way behind the Valida is a Candlight Acro which is a bright electric yellow green color that happens, as you pointed out klepto, to contrast nicely with the color of the foreground coral. The foreground coral was a tiny hitchiker that fell out of a hole in a rock on which a coral I purchased was mounted. It's growing nicely. And that I happened to glue it in a location months ago that led to a straight on perspective yielding that view now was quite fortuitous.

After initially posting this thread I reviewed it and several thoughts and feelings emerged within me. Besides a sense of contentment with the images and a realization that I'm some sort of ORA product brochure (I do have some other corals, really!), a realization of how much less of an effort it was to do these than earlier shots came through. I am still learning and have very much appreciated the gentle guidance I've received from this site. Often too gentle (my early images deserved much more rigorous criticism), but finding my own way having been pointed in the right direction was a better learning experience for me than being told what to do. Thanks again everyone.

 

[Tremont]

I think you just convinced me to pick up a frag of Red Planet

-Tre