Few recent pics

[Zibba]

From reading some of the suggestions posted by others, I figure I would try my hand at it again... A few of the pictures turned out. Most were over exposed and I'm still having trouble with full tank shots.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z187/zibba02/Full-Tank-Shot-web----110107.jpg


I liked how this one turned out:
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z187/zibba02/Candy-Cane-web---110107.jpg

This one was a bit over exposed - still pretty neat:
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z187/zibba02/Alien-Eye-web---110107.jpg

This was a complete accident:
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z187/zibba02/FrogSpawnweb-110107.jpg

Can I get some feedback/advise? I can give setting for any of the pictures if needed. Thanks for looking.

- Z

[Taklu]

Pretty neat accident... love the pic..not sure if the coral is that way but its kinda yellow & i dont think its the light.

For the full tank shot I would prefer not to have the edge in the picture..front shots are better & thats only how I prefer it.

I will let the experts speak the techie sutff..white balance ISO etc..

I like it how you have setup the caps to the left

[hypoxia]

Very nice coloration! A few suggestions;

1. Use a faster shutter speed so your fish don't have motion blur. :)
2. Photograph from straight on in front of the tank; not only will you eliminate distracting edge lines, but you won't have distortion from the glass.

[Zibba]

For this full tank shot I was trying to expand the depth of field to have everything in focus shooting more of an angled shot - but the depth didn't extend far enough. When I decreased the aperture to around f/20ish the fish kept causing a big blur in the picture. I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done about that or not.

I also prefer head on full tank shots, but was just trying something different out (and it didn't work as well as I hoped).

I'm thinking that I'm going to have a problem with the caps as they have already started running into each other. Might have to keep up with the fragging to keep them semi-happy.

[oyam123]

Great Tank, nice mix.
Love the PB Tang...I plan on killing a few when I get the new tank up.

[MNGold15]

Eric, I am not good with cameras so I can't help you there. But I just wanted to say the tank is looking great! :biggthumpup:

[Goldpony75]

Notice the clam right next to the LTA? That still amazed me when I see his setup. The clam seems unaffected from its CLOSE neighbor. lol

[Zibba]

Great Tank, nice mix.
Love the PB Tang...I plan on killing a few when I get the new tank up.


The PB's certainly aren't hardy fish. Mine tank has ich in it and he gets it the worst by far. He eats really well though and my cleaner shrimp/neon goby keep them clean. All my fish have a pretty good symbiotic relationships with the cleaners, which has helped to this point.



Hypoxia - Maybe it was the distortion from the glass that is the problem not the aperture settings. I agree completely with getting rid of the nasty edges in the shot!

MNGold - Thanks!

Goldpony - Haha, I look at it every day and laugh. (It's a gbta...I think - but the tips don't bubble). I want to move the clam but he seem really happy...

[hypoxia]

You don't need a depth of field of f/20 for such a shallow target. You'd be fine with f/8.5 or 11, enabling you to quicken your shutter speed.

[Zibba]

You don't need a depth of field of f/20 for such a shallow target. You'd be fine with f/8.5 or 11, enabling you to quicken your shutter speed.

I'll give that a try next time. Would it be best to shoot with higher or lower mm for that angle? I believe that shot was somewhere around 22-26mm from a 18-135mm lens. I also have a 70-300mm lens (not sure that would be the right one for this application though).

Also, looking more closely at the full shot - the depth that was created was going more front to back rather than left to right in the shot...(I'm not sure if that makes sense or not). I don't know any of the technical terms in photography - so be patient with me. :)

[Zibba]

Ok, so I'm going to try to clear that last statement up. In the FTS, I'm trying to have a more clear shot from left to right looking at the tank from this angle. It seems that the depth that is created is going from the tunze on the front left to the overflow, rather than from the caps to the frog spawn (which was my intention).

Is this related more to where I set my focal point? If so, where should it be? If not, please correct me.

[RogersCG]

You don't need a depth of field of f/20 for such a shallow target. You'd be fine with f/8.5 or 11, enabling you to quicken your shutter speed.

Hypoxia is correct. Distance from the subject is a component of DOF also. You aren't shooting a super close macro subject so you can back away and use a longer focal length. That will straighten out your lines on the tank edges also.

There is a cool little DOF calculator here you can put your camera, lens and other settings into and get a general idea as to what will be in focus.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I really like #2. I like how you have the other coral out of focus in the back left. Adds interest...

[Zibba]

Hypoxia is correct. Distance from the subject is a component of DOF also. You aren't shooting a super close macro subject so you can back away and use a longer focal length. That will straighten out your lines on the tank edges also.

There is a cool little DOF calculator here you can put your camera, lens and other settings into and get a general idea as to what will be in focus.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I really like #2. I like how you have the other coral out of focus in the back left. Adds interest...

I'll take a look at that article.

Again, the second pic was pretty much just a lucky accident. I held the camera at a funky angle trying to get a neat shot of the polyp extension and when I pulled it up on the computer - it turned out pretty well.

My photography is 99% equipment/luck and 1% (maybe less) creativity.

[mtfatwork]

Hey Eric those pics are great. Is that GBTA the one you got from me? I was wondering if it ever showed up :)

[Zibba]

Thanks Mary. It never turned up - I'm thinking it must have hit a powerhead and got eaten or something...but who knows, since I never saw anything after that original post I made about it. This is one of HermitSolo's GBTAs that split and was hanging out in his sump for awhile. It's starting to color up pretty good and has gotten pretty big! I would say fully expanded he is 8-10". I'm hoping it splits sometime soon because he's taking up some valuable real-estate! lol

[Fish'InMN]

I like the 3/4 angle shot better than normal, straight-on shots personally, since you get a much better perception of depth. Granted, it will be difficult to get an even focus across the depth, but that can be PS'd if you can't get the camera to do it. Artsy freshwater folks will sometimes go to great lengths to get the perfect 3/4 shot, but most of those tanks are the rimless/open-top type anyways, which are more conducive to shooting at an angle since there are very few obstructions.

That is one tall arse tank though! Give it a year or two and it will look amazing once all the fuzzy sticks grow in. :biggthumpup:


Cheers,
Marty

[Zibba]

I like the 3/4 angle shot better than normal, straight-on shots personally, since you get a much better perception of depth. Granted, it will be difficult to get an even focus across the depth, but that can be PS'd if you can't get the camera to do it. Artsy freshwater folks will sometimes go to great lengths to get the perfect 3/4 shot, but most of those tanks are the rimless/open-top type anyways, which are more conducive to shooting at an angle since there are very few obstructions.

That is one tall arse tank though! Give it a year or two and it will look amazing once all the fuzzy sticks grow in. :biggthumpup:


Cheers,
Marty

If we ever end up doing a club "photo" meeting, we should definitely have a PS tutorial by someone with knowledge. Marty you do great work! So I'm nominating you! :)

I would love to take a tutorial class or read a book on Digital Photography and Photoshop, but there's only so many hours in a day! (and I have plenty of other distractions *cough* tcmas.org *cough*)

[Fish'InMN]

Well, I'm self-taught when it comes to Photoshop, so that should say something about the learning curve! My best advice is to just start playing around with it. Start with one feature or subroutine (like sharpening) and do a few tests with different values in each input, all on the same photo. Your most previous values will be the default values used every time you open the feature, so it is nice to find what works and then leave it be.

I used to have a link to a tutorial detailing commonly used values for sharpening, stylizing, etc., but I lost it in a PC wipe a while back apparently. I am sure it must have been easy to find, otherwise I wouldn't have found it. :biggrin:


Cheers,
Marty

[capman]

Flickr.com also has at least a few Photoshop discussion/support forums. There are a lot of really experienced, knowledgeable folks who hang out on those flickr forums.

Nice looking photos, by the way!