Crocea Macro

[mattb]

Ok, I'm using a tamron macro lens at 180mm, AP mode, f/4.2... I cropped this on and went from RAW to JPEG. I pointed the camera at my white dursos to try to adjust my white balance.... Blues seem really over exposed (if that's the right word), not only on this but other shots.... Let me know what I should have done?

I think I should have a faster shutter time, since the Aperature is nearly wide open, is this what's giving me the over exposed blues?

[hypoxia]

What's your white balance setting/temperature? That'll make all the difference in the world.

[droinablunt]

Blues seem really over exposed (if that's the right word)

I always had that same problem with my sony dsc t1

[RogersCG]

Do you have a tripod at all? Macro shots have very limited depth of field. Best to open it up and put it on a tripod if you can. What are you using for post process?

[mattb]

Good questions... For white balance, I aim the camera at the white dursos and have the camera set the white balance. So its a custom WB.

I do use a tripod on the macro shots. I did some with auto focus and some with manual, I dont remember what this one is..

[RogersCG]

Try AP with the aperture set at the widest setting the lens allows for a macro shot like this. Put the camera on your tripod and use the timer (or a remote if you have one). I set the timer and stand still as I can. You can introduce quite a bit of camera shake by moving around during a 2 second shot. Turning off all the water flow is a good idea also as mentioned in your other post. I also shoot almost exclusively at ISO 200 (D70 camera). The D70 introduces too much noise in my opinion with higher ISO settings though I've read the D80 is quite a bit better in this area.

If you have the ability you may be able to do quite a bit in post processing with RAW and the white balance also... Not so forgiving when shooting JPEGs.

[Afish4u]

I always had that same problem with my sony dsc t1

were you ever able to correct that I have a dsc h5

[mattb]

Ok, I went totally manual...

f/5.6, 1/200, ISO400, +1.0ev (done on camera), 200mm. I believe I set WB around 6.5k. I just cropped this... I also tried the macro setting that came with the camera, didn't work so hot... everything dark.

Also I bought a Promaster 7500DX Digital. I tried using some flash as most pictures are very dark. When I mount this flash on my camera, it works fine. But I also bought a thingy whereby I can hold the flash in my hand and it's supposed to work, it it isn't. What am I missing?

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s198/stonycorals/DSC_0009-Version2.jpg

[mattb]

I guess, I haven't turned off the water... I don't think that will do much. I don't have much in the way of microbubbles (anymore)...

[hypoxia]

It's not microbubbles that are the issue; fluid motion distorts any image, period. Obviously minimizing all possible variables will give you a better image.

Don't white balance on anything in the tank. White balance to the specific light wavelength. You're not going to get an accurate white balance off something that isn't under WHITE lighting. :)

[capman]

Depth of field is a big problem with macro shots, as noted above already. But the solution is not to open up the aperture to the widest possible aperture (this reduces depth of field), but rather to use smaller apertures (smaller apertures = bigger numbers). f/22 or higher would not be unreasonable. This reduces light of course, requiring longer exposures (maybe this is why the tripod was mentioned above...the thought was smaller apertures, but the recommendation for wider apertures was given by accident?). Or you can increase ISO. On my D200 and ISO of 400 gives fine results. ISO 800 is often not bad either, assuming you have a good exposure. The D80 is supposed to do a bit better with high ISO noise (less noise), so 400 or 800 should be find. 1600 might even be OK sometimes, but lower would be better.

Really small apertures (e.g. f/22 or smaller) really ought to be avoided normally since they increase diffraction problems, but I've been told by people who know a lot more about the physics of photography than me that this is not a problem with macro shots. Really small apertures are fine for macro shots. My macro lens can go all the way to f/54 or something, for really incredible depth of field.

Your big issues here with these photos still seem to be white balance problems, and maybe some underexposure in the last photo.

Is your lighting wired to allow you to turn off some of those blue lights?

Or, try shooing some jpegs and see if your white balance settings have any effect on your jpegs. As I said in a previous post, in-camera whitebalance settings don't affect RAW images. The whole point of RAW format is to allow you to have maximum flexibility in making these sorts of adjustments on the computer.

Is your off-camera flash trigger unit a Wien peanut slave, by any chance? I tried one of these with my big Vivitar flash and it did not work well. It might be that your flash is not firing, or that it is not synchronizing with the camera properly. Try a PC cable (they are cheap, and you can get long ones....I have a 20 footer). Or you can get radio-controlled remote flash triggers that apparently work very well.

[RogersCG]

Depth of field is a big problem with macro shots, as noted above already. But the solution is not to open up the aperture to the widest possible aperture (this reduces depth of field), but rather to use smaller apertures (smaller apertures = bigger numbers). f/22 or higher would not be unreasonable. This reduces light of course, requiring longer exposures (maybe this is why the tripod was mentioned above...the thought was smaller apertures, but the recommendation for wider apertures was given by accident?). Or you can increase ISO. On my D200 and ISO of 400 gives fine results. ISO 800 is often not bad either, assuming you have a good exposure. The D80 is supposed to do a bit better with high ISO noise (less noise), so 400 or 800 should be find. 1600 might even be OK sometimes, but lower would be better.

Of course you are correct. I misspoke when I said "widest setting" when referring to the aperture. I PM'ed Matt with a better explanation which pretty much echoes what you have said here though not quite as eloquently. You are definitely a better teacher than I could ever hope to be.

I also sent Matt his article that might be useful for others in explaining this relationship between depth of field and aperture:

http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/guides/understanding_dof/index.html

Thanks for clarifying for everyone capman!

[spsick]

at last, he takes a picture lol! Matt, is that the tcn white acro next to the crocea?

[mattb]

No, it's A nana. It hasn't come around yet. Though the tips are finally purpling up again. It's exhibiting N limitation... It should color up in a month or so...

[hypoxia]

As far as white balance goes, let me break it down to this: when you tell your camera that something is white, it then not only assumes that thing is a true white but then it measures all other colors off that white. What you're doing is telling it that something light (which is under blue light) is white, and then it's creating all other colors based on that. That's why everything has a very deep blue saturation. I'd recommend setting your white balance based on the temperature of the bulbs and THEN running a white balance against a white piece of paper under those lights. That should help significantly.

[mattb]

The lights aren't blue to the eye, they're probably like 12k, which is a bit bluer than sunlight... Ok so set the temp to roughly that.. I think my D80 only goes to 9xxxk though, then using the custom white balance function?

[hypoxia]

What your eye sees is irrelevant. Because you are using a digital camera it interprets light VERY differently than your human eye because there is a computer re-interpreting colors to be whatever it *thinks* they should be. Really, film is so much better for capturing accurate color because it captures the actual light bouncing off the colored objects. It doesn't reinterpret it. So don't go with what your eyes tell you. You won't get accurate results.

[mattb]

gotcha... But I don't get all those "do overs" with film :)

[Taklu]

Since the the thread mentions Clams.. here are some clam pics ;)

http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=33313