Need help testing new app that color corrects for LED blue light in real-time

seahostler

New member
Blue and actinic light from LEDs has been ruining my reef aquarium photography for a long time. When I joined the hobby back in the early '90s, MH was the game not just because they're amazing, but because pics of tanks with MH looked INCREDIBLE (and still do) compared the VHO/Power Compact/T5 equivalents. The new game is LED and everyone is sharing pics of their coral and fish but instead of them having the great reds, oranges and greens, they're dosed in this blue tint making their colors inaccurate.

So what did we do? We started buying DSLR's and shooting in RAW and turning our tank photoshoots into professional photoshoots. We turned off our blue lights, we bought orange gels and safety glasses. We traded photoshop filters and played with white balance cards,... and for what? So we can get at least one color accurate shot of a frag we can see perfectly fine with our naked eye.

Let us all reflect...
Okay, stop reflecting.

Enter our hopeful hero, Aquarium Camera. It dreams of one day ridding the internet of bad reef aquarium photography. It's designed to color correct the actinic light from LEDs in real-time on your smart phone. The thing we take photos on for everything else in our lives, except our tanks... until now.

It works because it does it's magic on the camera sensor BEFORE your iphone/ipad has a chance to compress the image and permanently write the pixels in your photos. Correction works live on video or photos and I've spent a ton of my free time on it (instead of maintaining my tank... okay maybe 50/50).

So with that, I need your help. I don't have that many lights (and neither do the aquarium shops around me). I need your help testing the app on your various lighting setups to make sure it actually does what it's designed to do.

It's free to sign up to Beta test or if you want to jump into the deep end (pun somewhat intended) you can find it on the Apple App Store (Android coming soon).

Thanks guys and anxious to see if we can help rid the internet of bad reef shots!
http://aquariumcameraapp.com
 
I came here to ask someone how the heck I make my s8 take good pictures with LED lit tanks. I have an android though :(

Please help!

Currently trying to convince the fiance to install it on her phone. She signed up for the beta test, just waiting for confirmation I think.
 
I came here to ask someone how the heck I make my s8 take good pictures with LED lit tanks. I have an android though :(

Please help!

Currently trying to convince the fiance to install it on her phone. She signed up for the beta test, just waiting for confirmation I think.

I just sent out that invite to her. I think she's prepared to humor us, haha.

The Android version is in the works. I'm finalizing version 3 on iOS before I finish it so that Android users aren't a version behind.
 
Here are a couple shots Before/After I took at the Kessil booth this past weekend in Chicago at the Aquatic Experience. These are on the A80 (Tuna Blues).
 

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When you have a beta test for the Android app send me a PM, I take tons of pics, and funny enough my LEDs come this week. Would love to test.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
Add some more testers from the thread just now. Are you guys having issues downloading? I'm seeing that nobody has it installed yet. Let me know.
 
Your app WB set to max of 8k
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And roughly the same with ProCamera, WB set to its max of 10k.
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I purchased both your app and ProCamera...
These were taken with iPhone 7+, but I get the same results with my iPad Pro and her iPhone 7...
The Samsung S8+ I have blows both away with its Pro Mode, but I broke the screen on it so...

I think we need to be able to get the WB up around 15kmax to have a chance...

Both set of pics were taken in a darkened room, under a Kessil 160, of my 12" cube nano...
Pretty much just placed the phone against the glass...

Tank Pic with the Apple camera app...
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Since this app came out, I think people have made it a norm to buy clip on orange filters for their phones. The results is now instead of blue shifted aquarium shots, we now have orange-shifted. Crazy. I can't take it.

But the complaint with the aquarium camera app was that it wasn't high-res enough. When I created it 9 years ago, this was simply a limitation of the processors. Light I could have turned up the resolution, but the experience would be cruddy.

I have great news! iOS processors are now good enough to allow for HD everything on device and with that I have spent the past few months doing a complete overhaul of the app from the ground up. The new version records in 4k or full res images, has presets that can be saved and shared with other aquarists, new manual 32 filters to choose from ranging from light yellow through orange through dark red. Has a gallery and quick way to share images or videos and more.

Will this completely replace the need for buying clip on filters?
We shall see!

Hoping to get some help testing the new HD version of this app with a bunch of new features and functions. I don't have a tank setup at the moment so in desperate need of helping testing.

Free app for anybody helping me test: Beta Testing Program - Aquarium Apps
 
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