Quality or quantity of light?

[Reef Bass]

I shot my first pics in my lps tank which is lit exclusively by 6 54w T5s, compared with my sps tank which is lit by 2 400w MHs and T5 actinics.

When I opened the first pic, I was disappointed by what I saw:

My first reaction was that the quality of light is terrible. Incredibly flat. Way too soft. I know the pic isn't underexposed, as I had to reduce exposure somewhat when converting from RAW inorder to reduce areas displaying clipping / highlight blowout.

While speaking with a fellow reefing photographer, he suggested the issue was merely with the intensity of light, as lighting is less intense in the lps tank by design, and that I could eliminate the flatness with a flash or other supplemental light source. I don't doubt a flash would change the appearance considerably.

I feel pretty stupid asking this, but is this an issue with quality or quantity of light? Another example of how the camera's image sensor sees things differently from the human eye?

I was able to save / salvage / rescue the image by squeezing in both sides of the levels graph.

That's better...

 

[F.D.B]

Beautiful!!

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Photoshop to the rescue!! MH lights undeniably give a unique effect. Think of the "Shimer" everyone loves so much.

 

[Reef Bass]

Thanks F.D.B.

Oh yeah TS, love the shimmer...

That sounds like a vote for quality of light. Makes sense. I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that the quantity of light was the issue, as I am able to get tons of exposure at ISO 100. But what crappy exposure it is.

So do most people who have T5 only lighting just live with pale, washed out, low contrast images? Either there aren't many T5 only reef tank pics being posted here, or those that have them are aces with Photoshop and post process heavily? Both seem somewhat unlikely.

 

[Recty]

I'm not sure if this is what causes it or not... so dont take this too seriously.

It makes sense to me that a single point of light, or a couple single points of light, such as a MH or a couple MH above your tank, will provide much butter shadows and highlights throughout your picture.

A bunch of T5s kind of wash everything out. They spread light evenly, everywhere. Say with a MH you would have shadow underneath a little bump on your acan, with your T5's you have so much diffused light coming down from a lighting strip that's probably half as long as your tank, that the shadow and imo the highlights just arent there.

Does that make sense?

 

[Tremont]

LED point lights to the rescue imo. They are cheap, cast nice shadows, can be used to spotlight what you are trying to show and you can even get submersible ones. Everything I have posted is lit with LED's.