FTS...

[mattb]

So this is straight from the camera, I think the exposure is high?!? So I shot in RAW, and exported into JPEG, 50% of the size... It seems relatively focused...

I shot using the Nikon 18 - 105mm lens, AP mode = f/4, everything else is auto....

What should I have changed for an FTS?

[Taklu]

What should I have changed for an FTS?


The angle of ur shot!!! the tank is not framed for a good shot :biglaugh2:

I will leave the rest for the experts to comment :rotflmao:

[hypoxia]

FTS? Assuming you mean full tank shot, a straight-on shot is best. Try to eliminate distracting angles caused by the tank shape.

Turn off all water flow and let it set for a couple of minutes so detritus/bubbles settle down.

Your camera angle should be absolute centered and at sand level; that will minimize overexposure from the sand and utilize the reflection from the sand to highlight shadowed areas.

[Taklu]

what about the blue saturation?

[mattb]

The camera should be at the same level as the sand bed?

[mattb]

Ok, here's a revised FTS, straight on.... I used the auto flash on this one... this fim, I think I set my White Balance to 7500k. f/3.5, 1/200, ISO400. No tripod, 27mm.

[oyam123]

Can you say FLOW!

[mattb]

Can you say FLOW!

Actually the vortex are maybe 50% turned up :) Much more soon!

[RogersCG]

Ok, here's a revised FTS, straight on.... I used the auto flash on this one... this fim, I think I set my White Balance to 7500k. f/3.5, 1/200, ISO400. No tripod, 27mm.

27mm is giving you the curved front glass. Try closer to 75mm to straighten out those lines. I think a little lower angle would look better too. Fill the frame. No need to show the lights and stuff around the tank (unless that is what the subject is). See what it looks like bumping up your white balance to 10K or so (what temp bulbs are you running?).

[mattb]

I'll try that too. The fixture is T5 so I've got 10 bulbs every color of the rainbow, but I'm shooting for 10k. It's a little bluer right now.

Thanks every one for your pointers.

[hypoxia]

There's an echo in here.

The camera should be at the same level as the sand bed?

[capman]

My main thoughts (without thinking about this very long or very deeply) are:

1. Camera angle and framing could be improved (as already has been noted), assuming your goal is to have a view of what is in your tank and not a shot of the whole setup (the latter is a fine goal, if that is what you are after of course).

As far as camera angle is concerned, be aware that if you shoot absolutely straight on there is more chance of reflection from your camera (and especially your flash) in the aquarium glass. Remember that light bounces off a flat surface at an equal and opposite angle to how it hits the surface (sort of like pool balls in a pool table). I'm not seeing any reflection problems in your shots so far, probably because you were shooting at a downward angle, but if you fix that downward angle you might start seeing reflections.

2. Your photos seem a bit overexposed (as you noted). I'll bet the highlights are blown out (your D80 should show this if this is the case...poke around with the different display modes when viewing shots on the camera....overexposed highlights will flash on and off when viewed in the proper mode). My understanding is that the D80 has a tendency to overexpose sometimes (whereas the default for the D200 is to slightly underexpose to preserve highlights). An underexposed digital photo can be brightened to bring out detail in the dark parts (your D80 even has a D-lighting option that is really cool, and specifically brightens the darkest parts of the photo... this can be done in-camera), but the bright parts of digital photos easily get saturated (to the brightest possible pixel values) with overexposure, which results in all detail being lost in the brightest parts of overexposed photos (these parts of the photos become solid white).

If overexposure is in fact happening in these photos and the highlights are getting blown out, then you might try using exposure compensation (I think the D80 will let you do this easily) and reduce the exposure to a little lower than the camera's metering system thinks the scene needs.

Another possibility for scenes with high contrast is to use spot metering rather than matrix metereing, and take the exposure off of something really bright in the scene (there should be some way of locking exposure and then re-framing before taking the photo). The dark parts of the photo will end up being darker though if you do this.

3. There are big whitebalance issues in these shots. You seem to have lots of blue in your lighting, and your camera is not adequately compensating for this (OR, maybe this is just how your tank looks....does it look this blue when you observe it directly?....if so, wow, that's a lot of blue light!). Try increasing the color temperature further, if you want to improve the look of jpegs direct from the camera. Or shoot in RAW (as you have been doing I guess) and adjust the color temperature on the computer.

Important note: I don't think color temperature adjustments in the camera have any effect at all on the RAW images produced by the camera. In-camera color temperature adjustements only affect jpegs. So, if you are adjusting color temperature and still getting the same blue look in your photos, and if you have been shooting in RAW, this might be the reason why your adjustments seem to be having no effect.

Regarding color, note that if you use flash the color temperature of the flash is going to be different from your tank lighting, so you might not quite get the effect you are hoping for. The flash is going to be more or less like daylight (so 5500K or so maybe???... just guessing here), whereas your tank lighting is much higher I'm assuming. You could put a filter on your flash to have the flash match tank lighting as one solution. Or, you could turn of your tank lights (and maybe get them out of the way?), get a PC cable or wireless slave unit to trigger your big flash, and get the flash off the camera, above the tank and maybe slightly to the side (lots of creative things are possible) to get something that looks a lot like natural sunlight. It might be that a diffuser on the flash would be good too, depending on what effect you are after. (Just don't drop your flash in the aquarium!...it is so easy to do!). Eventually you might end up with more than one off-camera flash which could give even more flexibility.

More often than not, whether you are photographing people, flowers, or aquaria, on-camera flash is really ugly. It can work in some situations, but it tends to give photos a really unnatural flat look, with no shadows, or sort of strange shadows. If you get the bulk of the light off to the side more, or above, you get completely different effects that are often much more appealing and much more natural looking. A bit of back lighting can be pretty cool too sometimes. You might also enjoy just holding the flash off to the side of the tank for some cool side-lit effects.

[mattb]

thanks Bill... So much I don't know :)

[Flounder]

Can you say FLOW!

I am impressed you still have a sand bed