Tough Subject

[samdaman316]

This Firefish never seems to look right...the white pearl body must drive the camera crazy. I tried something different, I set my exposure looking at the sand then aimed at the fish....this is my best shot so far.

Comments?????

[/IMG]

 

[klepto]

cool photo- editing your white balance could bring down the blue caste and you could try changing your aperture or shutter speed rather than trying to gamble with automatic functions/metering - that way you can balance things so that your photo will have exactly the look you choose.

good luck~ and thanks for posting.

 

[samdaman316]

I had the camera in M and changed aperature and shutter speed until the camera told me I had a good exposure...this was while looking at the sandbed. When I took the shot of the fish, the camera was telling me the picture would be underexposed.....but you can see it looks fine. I did leave the WB up to the camera.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Well you were exposing for the sanded, which probably means everything is going to be underexposed. You should expose off some rock or something grey directly under the lights. The sand is not something I would use. Of course you can meter off the sand, figure out how wrong it is, and then use that figure repeatedly.

If you meter off something bright, your picture will be too dark and you have to back off. If you meter off something dark, your picture will be too bright and you have to up the exposure. If you meter of something right in the middle, you may get a new girlfriend named Goldilocks and have 7 kids.

Now if you WANT the image to be too dark or too bright that is your creative right, I am just saying as a general rule.

 

[Recty]

Here's the firefish I shot while I was doing a little photography for a local fish store. This is kinda cropped, otherwise you'd see a little more detail around the white part of the fish, it has some neat spotting there.

 

[reefman23]

What camera are you using? Can you shoot raw?

Jesse

 

[Falcn]

Try setting your metering mode to 'spot metering' and then exposing for the fish. If you are using evaluative or centre weighted metering then your exposure will be affected by the background.

Spot metering allows you to take a very narrow part of the image as the area you want to expose for.

I also set the WB to match the color of the lights. I have 10,000K halides so set my camera to that. Sometimes if the actinics are also on then I might raise the WB color again. Of course this assumes your camera gives you that level of adjustment.

 

[samdaman316]

The Spot Metering seems like a good idea, I'll try it. I still think the Firefish is one tough customer to take a good picture of.

 

[klepto]

I think you did a good job at capturing your fish.

a few other thoughts- the more balanced light you can get for your shot the better! I struggle with finding enough light in my tank for closeups unless I have a good bit of natural light. so if possible, try to get more light on the tank, so you can shoot at a high shutter speed and fstop, enabling you to capture a moving target and still have exposure options.

a tripod is a must for my lens, lighting conditions etc. (for those that arent using - give it a try) as well as getting parallel to your display window (because the glass acts as another lens) if you want a sharp image. This is covered in other threads here on RC.

 

[IPT]

Do try to fiddle with the white balance some. I took your little guy for a quick spin - hope you don't mind. I don;t mind metering off the sand. I know it'll need to be adjusted to read overexp by 1-2 stops - lock it in and shoot. Most likely with the background you have it would read underexposed. Often I use center weighted and just do exp compensation on the fly depending on where the fish is relative to the background. A little bracketing and it's all good.

One of my purple Firefish..

 

[Genetics]

Here's mine. The white needs to be color corrected in software. Otherwise, there is always a shimmer of blue in mine.

 

[samdaman316]

IPT and Genetics-

Both are very nice.

When playing with the WB, use the camera or software later on? I'll bet that question has been beat to death in this forum already!

 

[IPT]

Depends on what your shooting. To be honest I don't even know what my WB is set to in my camera (lol) so I guess I do most of mine in the RAW conversion. If I understand correctly there is really no difference between the WB set in the camera and what is done in the software. That is the beauty of RAW. The "data" is not "converted" or final until you process it. Doesn;t matter if the WB is applied in the camera or software. In the end though the software HAS to do the conversion. The WB it uses can be set in the software or camera with equal results. It's really a workflow issue.

This is just me but I find sometimes that say the "cloudy" setting gives me more acurate colors in what was a "shade" situation. Lately I have been using the "click white balance" tool too. Not sure if that is they way others do it, but it work for me.

You got me curious so I just looked at my camera. It's set to Auto.

 

[Genetics]

I tried WB for a while. Never came out right. Actually, I had a thread running on how to make my picture better. In the end, RAW and post editing by far beat internal WB into the ground.

 

[IPT]

When you say "RAW and post editing" what adjustments are you speaking off specifically? I imagine you choose the best WB setting in your RAW conversion, no? Then maybe a color balance layer in PS?

Keep in mind that in order to get the perfect coloration you may need to apply a specific color correction to just the white aspect of the image/fish. Otherwise it is possible it may shift the rest of the colors from where you want them.