watchguy123
New member
That is such a profound and important question to me. My goal and I presume most others in taking pictures is to best represent the actual colors seen looking at the tank. It is the exchange of photographs we share online that lets us look into each others tanks. And that is really phenomenal. You can be in Los Angeles, Singapore, Texas, Australia or anywhere and peer into someone's living room and see their corals. The ability to see the diversity of coral, growth and color is educational, informative and ultimately inspirational. If someone can get "that color" with the tools they are using then perhaps then any of us can achieve something similar as well.
Our lighting whatever it is, metal halide, t5's, LEDS or some combination of them all play havoc with our cameras ability to capture what our eyes see when viewing our tanks. We use all sorts of tools to manipulate, color correct, those photographic images. Lightroom, photoshop, filters on and on. There are different goals that people have in sharing their photographs and so sometimes photos are manipulated to show "unreal" colors.
So I would like to think if you and I were standing next to my tank and if my metal halides were on, we both would agree that my halide lit pictures look exactly like what we both see. I like to think that I get this right most of the time. And now, I would also like to think that if we peered at my tank with just those XHOS on, that we would once again agree that what we see looks exactly like these photos. I am not good enough as a photographer and Lightroom user to get it right all the time. I would like to think that at the least I am close and getting closer with practice.
There is a most dramatic change taking place in lighting, well actually it already has taken place. Last time I was at a RAP, I didn't see any metal halide fixtures being offered. When I first saw blue lit tanks at reefing shows, I was bothered but now I am accustomed to those lights. And more and more of my buddies are utilizing LEDS. Maybe they supplement with t5's or not. Plus some of the newer lights by Radion and Kessil don't seem to cast shockingly blue color over a room yet provide lots of fluorescence within the tank. I perceive that ultimately we will all likely transition to LEDS or something better perhaps.
I wanted to be able to photograph blue led pictures and capture the image my eye sees when I look into the tank. I am getting my photos to more closely mirror what I now see. Hopefully, I will keep improving.
The short answer to your question is that I hope my pictures represent realistic and accurate colors of these corals at whatever lighting is being utilized whether it be Metal Halides, T5's, LEDS or a combination of some or all.
More LED:XHO pictures
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