imsuperjp
Guest
How do you take nice pictures with your digital cameras? I know taht you have to have it on macro mode, but I have a hard time with the camera tryin to focus on the glass? And what is this white balance I hear ppl talk abt alot?
-
Welcome back Guest!MARSH is a private reefing group. Comments and suggestions are encouraged, but please keep them positive and constructive. Negative threads, posts, or attacks will be removed from view and reviewed by the staff. Continually disruptive, argumentative, or flagrant rule breakers may be suspended or banned.
How to take nice pictures? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter imsuperjp
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Users who are viewing this thread
Wildfire
Guest
imsuperjp said:
If you find out PLEEZE let me know....
G
Guest
Me too, I always get the green look
incysor
Guest
The W/B is a setting where you're telling the camera 'this area is white even if it doesn't appear to be', it then corrects it's filters to make the area white while you continue pointing it at that area. Once the W/B is set, it remains set until you change it again. If you're taking pics of different tanks you'll usually need to change the setting for each tank. Every camera is different so you just need to figure out how to change it on your camera. If your camera doesn't have a W/B setting, then you can sort of do the same thing in photoshop, or most image editing programs, it won't come out quite as good as setting the W/B on the camera, but you can approximate it.
CLEAN YOUR GLASS.
While this seems silly to have to say, there are lots of decent pics out there that are messed up due to the glass not being clean...I've posted a few that would have been really cool, but algae on the glass either made my camera mis-focus or simply made spots or blurry areas in what I was trying to take a picture of.
As for distortion with glass, that's just something that you have to work around. If you can get the lens of the camera flat on the glass you'll usually have less distortion. I rarely do this, but I do try to get it to as close to the same angle of the glass as I can.
Some cameras focus function doesn't seem to work as well if the flash isn't enabled, however the flas is often problematic because it reflects off the glass of the tank, or simply overpowers and whites-out the picture. If your camera has problems focusing with the flash off, turn it on and use something to block the light from the flash. I have used my fingers, a strip of 35mm film taped over the flash, and a pringles can lid to either block or diffuse the flash.
If you can change your ISO setting, turn it down as far as it'll go for shots of corals and stationary targets. Use a tripod if you have one. If you don't try to get the camera as still as possible. I usually end up bracing my fingers on the glass or stand to help if I can't get my tripod where I need it. This will cut down on fuzzyness or 'noise'. This becomes a problem if you want to take shots of faster moving fish, because turning it down tends to mean any movement generates blurry pictures.
I'm just starting to get into all these settings myself, but I've noticed the quality of my pics has gone up rapidly as I've started playing with them and looking online for tutorials, and info.
Brian
CLEAN YOUR GLASS.
While this seems silly to have to say, there are lots of decent pics out there that are messed up due to the glass not being clean...I've posted a few that would have been really cool, but algae on the glass either made my camera mis-focus or simply made spots or blurry areas in what I was trying to take a picture of.
As for distortion with glass, that's just something that you have to work around. If you can get the lens of the camera flat on the glass you'll usually have less distortion. I rarely do this, but I do try to get it to as close to the same angle of the glass as I can.
Some cameras focus function doesn't seem to work as well if the flash isn't enabled, however the flas is often problematic because it reflects off the glass of the tank, or simply overpowers and whites-out the picture. If your camera has problems focusing with the flash off, turn it on and use something to block the light from the flash. I have used my fingers, a strip of 35mm film taped over the flash, and a pringles can lid to either block or diffuse the flash.
If you can change your ISO setting, turn it down as far as it'll go for shots of corals and stationary targets. Use a tripod if you have one. If you don't try to get the camera as still as possible. I usually end up bracing my fingers on the glass or stand to help if I can't get my tripod where I need it. This will cut down on fuzzyness or 'noise'. This becomes a problem if you want to take shots of faster moving fish, because turning it down tends to mean any movement generates blurry pictures.
I'm just starting to get into all these settings myself, but I've noticed the quality of my pics has gone up rapidly as I've started playing with them and looking online for tutorials, and info.
Brian
incysor
Guest
Do we have any pro photographers in the club? Maybe we could have a day where everyone that's interested brings in their camera and manual and we have a pro explain some of the basic settings and what they do, then have them walk through the settings they would use for different shots on tanks, and what settings they wouldn't use, so we could see the different results.
B
B
G
Guest
different cameras vary quite a bit... for pro photographers, they'd be using more likely slr, especially w/ a macro lens... some might not, so it might be hard for everybody to bring their dinky little camera to learn from a pro..
anyway, Brian did an awesome job describing the basics!
something i wanna add is it would help turn off your pump if you can, to decrease water movement.
Also, following up on the ISO, if you can dig out your manual and read up on how to adjust the camera to be shutter priority, using a fast shutter speed on the fish would help create the "freeze the moment" shot, however the fish tank must be very bright though..
anyway, Brian did an awesome job describing the basics!
something i wanna add is it would help turn off your pump if you can, to decrease water movement.
Also, following up on the ISO, if you can dig out your manual and read up on how to adjust the camera to be shutter priority, using a fast shutter speed on the fish would help create the "freeze the moment" shot, however the fish tank must be very bright though..
G
Guest
btw, darrin is a pro
G
Guest
I think a while back we had a marsh meetting on aquarium photography, I think.
Michael
Michael
incysor
Guest
articcatfish said:
Ahh, musta been before my time. I did read comments that pointed to some kind presentation on photographing aquariums, but I was thinking something a little more hands on. Maybe a short presentation with a handout of the definitions of terms, and then most of the time spent taking pictures, getting direct feedback on how you screwed that shot up, or how you could make it better.
Here's a great slide show of a guys presentation that he gave for his local aquarium club. He's working on making a web page that will be a bit clearer that I can't wait to see.
http://www.ximinasphotography.com/galleries/thumbnails.php?album=42&page=1&sort=na
G
Guest
Very cool.
incysor
Guest
incysor said:articcatfish said:
Ahh, musta been before my time. I did read comments that pointed to some kind presentation on photographing aquariums, but I was thinking something a little more hands on. Maybe a short presentation with a handout of the definitions of terms, and then most of the time spent taking pictures, getting direct feedback on how you screwed that shot up, or how you could make it better.
Here's a great slide show of a guys presentation that he gave for his local aquarium club. He's working on making a web page that will be a bit clearer that I can't wait to see.
http://www.ximinasphotography.com/galleries/thumbnails.php?album=42&page=1&sort=na
He got the how-to site up last night. The guy's name is Gregory and he's very nice and would appreciate feedback on pretty much any are of his website, feel free to leave comments about his pics or lessons or whatever.
http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/
Brian
G
Guest
my gf has a canon 10D with a macro lens. i'd love to learn how to use it to take cool pics.
