Photo Tips...

[EdandSandy]

wow, what a great site. tonight i will play with my Nikon D50, on a tripod...
let you know how it goes!
thanks for all the great tips!

[EdandSandy]

when you say turn off all the lights, do you mean the moon lights too? (don't laugh)

[dobejazz]

Originally Posted by EdandSandy

when you say turn off all the lights, do you mean the moon lights too? (don't laugh)

I'm not sure what post you are referring to - But I take pics with my tank lights on - no flash and I turn off all the room lights and close the blinds so they don't reflect in the tank pictures

[crvz]

Originally Posted by EdandSandy

when you say turn off all the lights, do you mean the moon lights too? (don't laugh)

Normally this would mean turn off the house lights around the tank, but you'll want to leave on the tank lights. This should help eliminate any reflections in the panes of glass. So close the blinds, kill the room lighting, and turn off the flash, and see what kind of pictures you can get.

[EdandSandy]

Thanks, I'll try that!

[etk1989]

If you have a Canon, turn all the lights off in your tank and take it with the flash on...it looks crystal clear (at least for my Canon)

[rjw]

1 thing i did not see mentioned.. Turn Off your flow while taking pictures.. You will get rid of blur due to current movment of your objects .. This is a big one for me.. as soon as i did that, my pictures improved 100%

[Archon]

Originally Posted by rjw

1 thing i did not see mentioned.. Turn Off your flow while taking pictures.. You will get rid of blur due to current movment of your objects .. This is a big one for me.. as soon as i did that, my pictures improved 100%

i do this too and wait a little while to get rid of some of the microbubbles the camera pics up on

[Dice_cage]

Oups!

[quader94]

my advice for fish.

adjust the shutter speed to a smaller fraction. cuz as we all know fish are a pain to take pics of so the quicker the picture the better

[McLoki]

I went to a reef photography seminar a couple of weeks ago and most of what we suggested was in this thread. His suggestions were:

• Clean the glass (especially where the sand meets the water)
• Turn off the flow in your tank
• Always use a tripod (in his opinion, #2 in importance behind your lens)
• Use the manual mode on your camera (if available)
• If you own one macro lens - make it about 100mm.
• Run a low F-Stop (higher number) for macro photography
• The lens used in an SLR is more important than the camera used. (i.e. - a mid-grade Nikon with a great macro lens will take better pics than a high end Nikon with the stock lens that comes with it)
• Take lots of pictures.
• If a picture looks good to you - it is good, thats all there is to it.

Michael

[icebear]

my old camera has almost no manual settings... makes it frustrating. (makes the tank look green or brown or dim and reveals no dimension) i feel like i'm always blaming my incompetence on the camera, but in a way..i have a point! i'm sure a pro could make my camera take great pics, but would a real pro choose to use mine? lol

i even just found the user manual online in PDF and looked it over to make sure i wasn't missing some manual features, but no....

its a Sony Mavica FD92 that was bought 7 years ago... so old it has a floppy drive!

[mpderksen]

As mentioned, the temperature of the lights will affect the color. I shoot in RAW format and adjust in PS.