Powderhound picture thread.. show what you got=)

[Dapg8gt]

I know as a whole the club bought a lot of frags from him and I was curious on how everyone's corals are doing. Mine are doing pretty good I recently had some issues with the tank switching to neo marine salt mix and got one of the bad batches. I was fighting some random RTN but luckily I realized what it was before it did serious damage . Powderhound frags were unaffected so far fingers crossed..

So here goes mine some decent pics the rest pooh lol. I hope everyone else can contribute also I'd love to see how the frags are developing..

(borealis slowly coloring up nicely)



(Hawkins had to hack this one up amazed it didn't flinch =)



(bubblegum millie middle of rainbow millie and new wild frag)



(24k, strawberry fields, yellow tip austera) super small copps 24k millie top left middle totally out of focus but different than the new one far left..



Above sunsett=


(smurfette millie)



Montipora left on frag rack.

 

[Dapg8gt]

Continue frag rack, montipora second left, accidental bubblegum Mille on rock in back, and another unknown pink tip something =) still no color bleached in the middle in front of the millie





(purple plasma)

(right of clown)



Ora something forgot name lol the green one under sunset)

 

[powderhound]

Nice pics. Im glad they are all coloring up nicely.

 

[Dapg8gt]

Thanks =) all of them made it through my salt issue unphased other than color . Great strains

I know others got to have better colors/growth than I do guess no one wants to show them though lol..

.

 

[lokii_37]

Here are mine. The smurfette milli has had great PE since day 1. The others are still a little irritated by a small goby I'm trying to catch.
Yellow tip austra

Cali tort

Smurfette milli

Tyree soli I think

 

[lokii_37]

I'm still working on the color but that is all me, and a little of the wattage light was adjusted for the shot, not the frags.

 

[Dapg8gt]

Nice =) .. The soli is a gonna be a stunner I'm interested to see how they turn out under your hybrid.. Thanks for sharing..

Anyone else =)?

Do you still use the food that I brought up? Did it work well in your tank? I'm going to make some more this weekend and wondering if you have anything I should do different. I'm going to have a better consistency this time for the fish but any other suggestions? John if you read this same question for you =)..

I should be able to bring some more packages to the meeting if there is any interest.. I'll ask once it's a definite I can get childcare.

On a side note what combo of leds are you running in your fixture? Size heatsink? How many leds? I'm going to do it to mine for the frag tank if this cheap multichip fixture I bought don't work out.. I got one from 21led it's a 20k/20w chip fixture for $50 lol.. They look decent so if this single one works good I'll use them down the middle of the t5..easier and cheaper since I could get out of it for about $100-$150 depending on coverage. I think its the same company dragonvale's strips are from.. They sell some that look exactly the same as his..

 

[Reef Bass]

Anyone else =)?

I will try to get some shots of my smurfette milli and Cali tort.

 

[Dapg8gt]

I will try to get some shots of my smurfette milli and Cali tort.

Nice! I've seen a few of your pics on here and they are always awesome quality. looking forward to them..

 

[woodnaquanut]

Do you still use the food that I brought up? Did it work well in your tank? I'm going to make some more this weekend and wondering if you have anything I should do different. I'm going to have a better consistency this time for the fish but any other suggestions? John if you read this same question for you =)..

Love the food. I have so few fish the 'sample' you gave me might last a year! They attack it! My One Spot Foxface is so chubby, it's in danger of becoming as wide as it is long. FF in a boxfish body!

I don't know how you could improve on it. Seems like perfection now!!

 

[lokii_37]

My fish are loving the food. I had to throw out the last little bit because it thawed out when the power went out here the other week.
I think like you said a few more chunks for the bigger fish. But other then that it is great stuff.

I'll get back to you on the led ratio when I get home. I think it is pretty close to 1:1 RB:W. Which is sort of odd because I see most people recommend 2:1 or even 4:1. I run my RB and W at about the same % and it still seems to blue sometimes. Maybe it's the blue+ t5s.

 

[Reef Bass]

Nice! I've seen a few of your pics on here and they are always awesome quality. looking forward to them..

Thanks.

These shots are very boring. With the goal being to show the whole frag, not to create an interesting image, this is arguably one of the few situations where full subject and center composition are desirable.

The Cali tort is settling in and the color has brightened / deepened some. Definitely more green than my Oregon tort. So happy to have both.


The smurfette milli has paled a tad, but polyp extension has been decent.


Super delighted to not be seeing any bite marks. While I dipped everything, still making Lurch noises. Those of you who are old enough to remember the Addams family tv series know the sounds to which I refer.

 

[Dapg8gt]

Nice color on those. I saw a post you made on another old thread pointing out your website to show color.. One word to describe it is talent.. Both in photography and even more obvious is reef keeping ability.. Thanks for posting them. I wish I could capture the colors of my corals in pics but I just can't do it at this point without spending some time learning lol..

Tonight I tried to take some videos of my tank with my HD camcorder and they were worse than my phone =). It has a white balance adjustment but with the custom setting all I could get it to do while shooting the tank was washed out blue video.. The auto setting works OK but it's not what my tank looks like at all.. The colors seem dull and washed out where the light is strong on the top of the coral..

I need to do some research on manipulating my camera settings it's a good camcorder for everyday shooting but I just don't have the knowledge to use it to get a good shot in my reef with the t5. It's a Sony Hd handycam that wasn't cheap. Should have just got a Dslr for the price I paid for it a few years ago ha ha..

 

[Reef Bass]

Thanks. Your sticks speak well about your reefing abilities.

A "feature" of macro photography is that only a one or two inch square of tank need look good or interesting and is not necessarily representative of the entire tank. Oh wait, I mean, of course the rest of the tank looks that fine as well.

What you are experiencing is typical. Cameras and camcorders don't auto white balance well under high color temperature lighting. Reef lighting is a specialty / niche situation and not on camera companies' radar for support in their mass produced offerings for typical consumers.

DSLRs and some point and shoots allow the saving of the image sensor data before the camera attempts to white balance. This is called shooting in RAW mode and the RAW image files (not jpgs) are loaded into post processing software such as Lightroom where a human sets the white balance in the image, resulting in a picture with colors resembling what someone would see looking at the tank. Some camcorders are now beginning to support RAW, particularly those which offer 4k video (the next consumer video standard we'll all be moving to, also called "Ultra HD").

Many cameras offer custom white balance options, but in my experience, these are more tedious to use and less accurate than shooting in RAW and moving a color temperature slider control in post production software.

Your best bet with your existing camcorder might be to see if there are any lighting settings ("tungsten", "fluorescent", "indoor", etc.) which come closer to properly white balancing.

Good luck and let us know if you discover a viable solution. Or even one which just sucks less.