The blues

[hypoxia]

I took this about a half hour ago. I noticed how beautifully fake these looked under the new lighting I got from Dirk , and I decided to try to capture it. I swear I haven't tampered with the color in any way.

http://www.tcmas.org/forums/imagehosting/145471d65426a31b.jpg

[tico mike]

Yes, they look very nice. Put that picture in for the calendar. See if you can crop out the blue live rock.:freak6:

Seriously would make a nice page in the calendar.

[thegrimreefer]

Wow, nice.

[Zibba]

Awesome shot. What lighting was that under? Any specifics on the camera settings?

[hypoxia]

I won't be putting it in for submission for the calendar, unfortunately, but thank you for the compliment. The colors are way out of gamut for print quality. . . . I might tinker with it a bit. It's in RGB at screen res, and for print it needs to be in CMYK at print res. :/

65-watt true actinic PC

Canon EOS 10D, 1/15 second @ f/6.3, ISO 1600, focal length 135.0 mm, average metering mode.

[tico mike]

It's in RGB at screen res, and for print it needs to be in CMYK at print res. :/

65-watt true actinic PC

Canon EOS 10D, 1/15 second @ f/6.3, ISO 1600, focal length 135.0 mm, average metering mode.

Why do I feel like Patrick on spongebob when I read this. With the drool dripping down and the blank look.:icon_drool: :dork: :silly: :brainoverload:

[hypoxia]

Sorry. *grin* It's what I do for a living. I'm extremely particular when it comes to print quality, especially of my own work. I used to compete on a national level but I'm just a little too thin-skinned for that, I think. *heh*

[benihana]

I definately don't do it for a living, but more of a hobby, so excuse the question, but why do you shoot at such a high ISO? I have been told that colors (specefically red) tend to run at anything higher than 800?

[hypoxia]

When you have low light and a low shutter speed you shoot at a higher ISO to achieve a proper exposure and get the color saturation. Otherwise, your images are horribly underexposed and washed out. However, the higher your ISO the more grain/pixellization you will see, such as in my image. That's one of the reasons my image is not reproducible for this calendar; the pixels are the size of footballs if I enlarge it to a reproducible size.

Now, at the risk of giving you too much information to work with, imagine the converse for a second: if a high ISO enables your camera to absorb more light, thus helping you have a high shutter speed, a lower ISO causes your camera to absorb less light, causing you to have a lower shutter speed to let in more light, which gives you a longer exposure so you can still get the quality. It's an inverse relationship.

The risk you run with a lower shutter speed is camera shake, or your fish swimming in front of your coral and screwing up your shot, or water or bubble movement blurring the image. Anything below 1/20 of a second for me (for most others it's 1/45 of a second) will show movement unless it's on a tripod. Your body naturally shakes and the image will show any movement you make. I've got an image stabilizing lens, which has a built-in gyroscope to steady the image and greatly reduce camera shake. I've done a lot of band photography over the years and this lens, while more expensive than some cars I've purchased, has been one of the best investments I've ever made. ;) I've gone down to 1/8 second exposures with no shake, but not because I'm that steady on my own. :)

Were you told that for digital or film cameras? I ask because digital has never been able to reproduce a true red, nor will it in the forseeable future. That's one of the reasons I strongly prefer film rather than digital, even though I have a digital setup. Film capture the actual coloration, and digital captures whatever the computer interprets, and therefore is limited by technology.

If you're overexposing film by more than 2 stops then yes, your colors can bleed due to oversaturation.

[benihana]

That makes sense. I was told about the ISO specifically for Digital (I have a 20D). I agree with you on the lenses...they really do make a HUGE difference. Out of curiousity, which lens were you shooting this photo with? And which one were you talking about using for the bands?

[hypoxia]

Same lens. It's an Ultrasonic, 28-135 f/3.5-5.6. This one, actually:

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-28-135mm-3-5-5-6-Standard-SLR-Cameras/dp/B00006I53S

It's come down in price considerably from when I bought it, even at the nearly $700 price tag. It's a great lens. You can turn the balance off, or switch to manual. . . there's a lot of flexibility with it, I think. It was so expensive when I bought it six or seven years ago just because it's so lightweight. It's VERY quiet and it's EXTREMELY compact. It has a nice macro mode too. The only drawback is that it is quite often slower than a conventional lens simply because the gyroscopic lens is in constant motion and needs an extra moment to focus. Really, I haven't experienced that as a serious drawback though. When that happens I kick it to manual mode.

Another thing to remember (now that I've already thrown a ton of info at you) about a high ISO is that even if the exposure is perfect, there is a greater risk of pixellization/grain magnification than if you'd shot the same thing at a lower ISO with an equivalent exposure. It doesn't always happen, and it totally depends on the circumstances at the time the image was composed, but the risk it there.

[benihana]

Funny enough, I actually have this lens, I was thinking you were maybe talking about the 16-40L f/2.8 lens, or something of that nature. Nice to know with a little more overall knowledge that I can be REAL dangerous with the photos

[hypoxia]

Great minds think alike. ;)

Honestly, I feel I had to totally re-learn how to use a camera when I got my first digital camera years ago. The principles were the same but the execution was completely different for me. There were aspects that made my work much easier but also more difficult because I had to work around certain limitations (no accurate reds, fine patterns distorted, etc.).

Anyhoos, I think I'll re-photograph this image in a few days to see if I can get a good quality print-ready image.