Some random photos

[TitusvileSurfer]

What are the dimensions of the tank on the bottom? For a 50g, it looks like you L is much longer than typical, W shorter, and H shorter?

 

[sphelps]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13900685#post13900685 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitusvileSurfer
What are the dimensions of the tank on the bottom? For a 50g, it looks like you L is much longer than typical, W shorter, and H shorter?

It's 30" Wide, 24" deep (front to back) and 16" tall. It's all custom made.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Did you make it yourself? (I am assuming your red house leads to you personal "aquarium engineering" business).

 

[sphelps]

Yes, I designed and build everything myself. And yes I do have a personal business but it's actually more of a hobby than anything else and writing off my personal tank as a business expense it pretty nice

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

So you have a large simi-cube (because of height) which is beautiful. Where most people with cube tanks place their sump and equipment...you have opted for another simi-cube display tank. All of the equipment goes to a whole other room out of sight and out of mind for everyone but you. Genius.

 

[sphelps]

A couple recent pics, please let me know your thoughts

 

[djmx2002]

amazing photos

 

[ccampo]

Those are really awesome photos, all of them

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Ah my favorite tank(s) on Reef Central. On the very first shot, I would have decreased your aperture. You used f/3.2 and the resulting DOF was very minimal, leaving most of the coral out of focus. I would have used a smaller aperture (maybe f/5.6?) to bring more the subject in sharp focus. The bottom two are excellent. I love the subject in #2, you did a great job of bringing out the colors and I enjoy the background which basically does not exist. The lighting in #3 was well thought out, and it was processed very well. (It seems some semi-heavy Photoshop was in play.) All around it is a great capture great capture.

 

[sphelps]

Thanks Ocean Man, I would have to agree that my aperture was too high but I always find it a challenge in macro to find that line between the shutter and aperture to yield the best results. Sure it's easy with a tripod but it's pretty hard to set something up for top downs or when a traditional tripod just won't work. Usually I will rest the camera on something and use shutter dependent mode with lowest possible speed while still preventing blur, it's a 150mm lens so the shutter is my biggest limitation. Any tips you have to help with this would be really appreciated.

I think in the new year I'm going to experiment with some focus stacking and perhaps a custom tripod for top down shots.

I actually use Capture NX2 software for most of my editing, I prefer it to photoshop. Plus I only have CS2 which doesn't support raw from the D300.

 

[sphelps]

I redid one of the pics above using the focus stacking technique. This picture was created from 7 pictures at different DOF. This was my first crack at this so be gentle
I used Helicon Focus.

 

[sphelps]

Another pic, same technique

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Damn. Those are nice.