New 220 gallon build

[rjrobert]

Kurt, great pictures. You might want to give infrared photopgraphy a shot. I think you would have some real fun with it.
Were you shooting 1600 or 3200 ISO? Very little grain that I can notice. Or did you process the images after to smooth them and sharpen a little?

 

[KurtsReef]

ISO on these was 640, there was no noise reduction done. The exposure times were 13-15 seconds while shining the LED light at the coral.

I tried this after reading an article in an old National Geographic where a guy (about 6 years ago, it was an old mag) took a high powered ultraviolet light...which I think is just under the acentic range of the light spectrum...to a live reef in the sea at night and took shots. They were amazing.

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow Kurt, as usual those shots are amazing

 

[rjrobert]

Kurt, I hope your cataloging these. I'm a member of the Greater Rochester NY Proffessional Photographers and these are pro pictures. You should seriously think about publishing a contact (thumbnail images) to a few photo houses. You could make a little money to pay for some of your equipment. If you interested I could bring you as a guest to one of our monthly GRPP dinners and introduce you to Bob and Wendy, the areas best commercial photographers. Since this is different than what they do I'm sure they could point you in the right direction if you were interested.

You make any serious money though I would want a free frag

And now my wife is going to beat me I have about 30k in gear but never needed a Macro lense. These images make me want to change that. I'm looking st a Sigma and two Canon lenses. The L series 180mm is about 1300 which isn't too bad compared to some of my other L series lenses. I tried using my 70-200L but I can't get the focusing distance in close enough to do anything to fun.

Anyways, good job.
Bob

 

[KurtsReef]

Thanks for the kind words Bob, I make a bit of money on portraiture and sports photography but have never dove into the stock photo thing. Guess I could start, had a father at an event I shot last summer ask for some product shot/stock photo examples but never did get back to him...he was an Ad exec at some company.

Would be interested in hearing who Wendy and Bob go through.

I am not a member of any local organization but am a member of PPA.

I use Bridge and Lightroom as DAM software but not totally sold on either, would be nice to have access to all files on all external drives without those drives being attached (like say to my laptop...) neither of these programs provide that.

 

[otiso777]

Great pictures! The colors on those acans are awesome

 

[KurtsReef]

Here is a full tank shot taken today.

Right side of the "Front"

Back left side

Back center (that is supposed to be a green slimer but has never been "Slimy")

 

[Mel-E-Mel]

Man thats a nice tank!

 

[melev]

I really like how clear the water is, and how clean the background kept. It looks like you are getting a nice band of sunlight in those pictures, which really make the reef more striking.

 

[Brent Thomann]

wow kurt, they almost look 3D.

how's your new awesome aussie acan frag doing?

 

[KurtsReef]

Thanks guys. Mel, there is a strobe light firing into each side which is giving it the sun beam effect.

Brent the Strawberry replacement is open up and doing well. I think it was perhaps getting too much sun and died of being burned so this one is a in a bit of shade on the right front side below the purple Montipora Digitala

 

[Reeftanks6]

WOW i am amazed the tank is so clear and clean and looks great keep them coming

 

[melev]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11552155#post11552155 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by KurtsReef
Thanks guys. Mel, there is a strobe light firing into each side which is giving it the sun beam effect.

Wow, you completely fooled me on that one! That's really neat. Come over here and work some magic on my reef.

 

[KurtsReef]

Couple more shots.

Tried the night shots again last night, really liked these two. An acan and a candy cane coral.

Watchman goby and open brain it lives under

 

[RandyO]

Strobe lights, purple LED's...

You really spice things up with your photographing techniques.

Your a great asset to this community. Keep up the great work.

 

[KurtsReef]

I have to thank Randy for selling me a top down box yesterday....have wanted one but not wanted to take the time to build one for awhile.

Here is my first shots using it, and my first decent photographs of my clams ever.

Elegance, the soft portion of this coral has doubled in the 6 months I have had it. I actually had to move a brain away from it accomplished yesterday also.

New addition, also from Randy at RC

 

[KurtsReef]

After a few electric bills swapped out the outer two fixtures with 250w ballasts and lights, so now the display has (2) 250w lights and (1) 400w in the center. Shall see how that goes, but I am interested in swapping out a third 400w for a 250 or even lower wattage for the sump area. An even trade could be worked out if someone is interested, mogul based electronic type ballast would be wanted.

 

[KurtsReef]

Also from the top down...

Garys unknown acro (Which as I see needs a red bug treatment, thought I had gotten rid of all of them but see two on this shot) Too bad it is attached to that rock, will have to treat the entire rock.

Blue tip green Acro

Purple acro

 

[KurtsReef]

Green Aveopora, have had this about 8 months now

So picked this up at reef creations yesterday to give it a try, purple Goniopora

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

very very nice.
I think it's very important that I mention my corals don't have red bugs- you got that frag of "Gary's unknown Acro" from somebody else.