macros

[Recty]

If I could just figure out how to not need sleep...

It's called a mocha...

 

[IPT]

You are so right. My apologies Louis and Jake.

No worries . With all these user names it gets tough to keep track sometimes!

 

[maroun.c]

Hi,
I love your pictures! I found your posts by searching for the eos 50D since I just bought one with the same lens, am learning how to use it. Only problem I am having is with my blue tang and the top of the royal gramma's head. Both have supersaturated magenta/violet colors in the brightest areas. I am wondering if you have this problem with your 50D and how you solve it? Have changed bulbs, shooting angle and distance, ISO and various other settings. Only way to get it minimal is to shoot very dark, even then it's still in the highlights. Here is a link. If you have any advice I would appreciate it.
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n72/electrokate/
Other shots are normal. Still experimenting with manual settings so all are a bit off, I can see this will take some time to get right. Your shots are amazing!
Thanks,
Kate

couldn't see the link you posted but from what you describe this would be purple fringing. where purple or sometimes blue colors are verymuch exagerated and have this glowing effect... If I remember correctly this happens because of lenses where some lenses are more prone to purple fringe than others. If I remember correctly there was something else that had a great effect in it not sure if it was the angle to the light source or cofal spot used.... Maybe try some pics with another lens to see if you get teh same and then yo utry messing with different exposures or angles.
Should be fixable in RAW but still always better to have the right exposure and color out of the camera.
I could be totally off as I'm not seeing the picture...

 

[aquariumclown]

May I ask, what were you fortifying your sps with?

Thanks Grant. I'm feeling a bit like a one trick pony, but it makes me happy (coral macros). Many of these pics all had a disturbingly similar composition (big branch coming in from right), which didn't thrill me, but that's how it went that day.

Jake, you're going to make me confess my stupidity, huh? Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable. My most recent learning experiences involved understanding sps nutrition and foods. My club was fortunate to have Randy Reed of Reef Nutrition come speak and I realized that while I was fortifying my lps nicely, I not properly feeding my sps. That explained why they looked like they were coming from an ultra low nutrient environment (very pale) despite my having detectable nitrates, phosphates and lots of algae (which aren't found in ULN systems).

The second thing I learned recently (the hard way), is to not be such a slacker when a test kit runs out. The powdered reagent in my RedSea calcium test kit (don't recomend it) solidified one day rendering it useless. I took my sweet time getting a new test kit (Elos, very happy with it). In the time I took to get the new kit and actually test the water, my calcium had dropped to below 300 (eeeeek!), despite having dosing dialed in previously. I suspect my previous calcium test kit was reading high to start with, so I actually had less calcium in the water than it said I did. With an appropriate, stable calcium level my corals are growing and thickening like they never had enough calcium available before.

So the color of my corals have intensified nicely and the corals themselves are growing at their best rate yet. My Idaho Grape went from 2" across to 15" in about 1.5 - 2 years, so they were doing ok before.