newbeetwo
Here to 8 on the break
WOW took me awhile to catch up. looks good biff..88 WOW
Biffy Finally Gets a Build Thread!
- Thread starter Bifferwine
- Start date
Zissou
What about my dynamite?
*editing*
Zissou
What about my dynamite?
I know it's alot to read, perhaps I should've made another thread on it. In regards to your pictures, here's some adjustments you might want to try. Perhaps I'll make a photography tutorial thread later. I'm not really good at explaining things. CLIFF NOTES are at the bottom.
On with it:
Do not use your flash. You want to use the lighting in your aquarium.
The high grain in your pictures is probably the result of a high ISO. Check your ISO and set it to 100 or 200. 400 and above and you'll start getting grain. There's alot more to ISO than grain, but that's another threadful of information that we won't go into just yet.
Say you set your camera to ISO 100, and it gives you a shutter speed slower than 1/60th. Any *handheld* shot slower than 1/60th of a second will most likely be blurry. Your heartbeat, pulse, your body trying to stay still on carpet, etc. will introduce blur in the shot. Anything moving quickly in front of the camera, like fish or waving coral arm, may also be blurry. What do you do?
Break out your tripod. Set it up and compose your shot. Be as still as possible when pushing the button, don't shake the floorboards with your feet, don't bump the tripod with your arm.
What can really help is setting the camera to timer mode. When I say timer mode, I mean that mode when you're taking pictures of your friends and you want to be in the shot. You set the timer, run up next to your friends, smile and wait for the camera. It usually lets out a beep or warning that it's about to go off. This gives you ample opportunity to click the button, walk away from the camera, and let it take the picture without any vibrations, assuming you're not jumping up and down on the floor when it goes off. Another good thing about timer mode is this: Say your fish is following you and you don't want him in your shot. The timer will give you the opportunity to move to another side of the tank, effectively guiding him away from that coral or non-moving shrimp that you're trying to make a superstar.
Say you want to take a picture of a fast moving fish. Then you'll have to ramp up your shutter speed, or use flash. Flash will freeze your fish, but it'll also blow out the colors and darken the background if used improperly. Without flash, you'll have to manually adjust your speed. Adjusting the speed will require you to change your aperture (f stop) as well. You can set the camera to shutter priority, set the speed, and it'll adjust the f stop for you. Likewise, aperture priority is opposite. You set the aperture and it determines the speed for it. Full manual gives control over both.
The other important thing is your white balance. Different types of lights give off a different color. Flourescent lights give off a green cast, halogen a yellow cast. Your camera most likely has a shade, cloudy, flourescent, halogen and sunny white balance settings. If you're subject is in the shade, you'll want to set to shade balance. If it's an overcast sky, you may set it to cloudy. If your subjects are under halogen lights, set it to the halogen (icon usually looks like a lightbulb) setting.
If you leave the white balance on auto, it'll be neutral. Flourescent lights will turn everything green, halogen lights will turn everything yellow, etc.
Setting your White Balance for each situation is crucial.
Here is a great page on it:
How to Set White Balance
CLIFF NOTES:
Just for the basics, set camera to auto.
Check your ISO. Set to 100, 200 for lowest grain.
Shutter Speed higher than 1/60th (1/125th, 1/160th, 1/250th, etc.) - You can handhold most of your shots.
Shutter Speed lower than 1/60th - Requires tripod.
Set White Balance. Experiment. Take the same shot with the same shutter/fstop settings, but change the white balance each time, til you get the color/exposure you want.
Oh, one more thing, Focus on your SUBJECT. If it has eyes, focus on its eyes. If the main part of a coral is its mouth, focus on its mouth. Focusing on a subject usually means putting the subject dead center in the viewfinder. Usually, this does not make for a good picture. What to do?
Notice that in this photograph, the ladybug is focused but not directly in the center? It's easy to do this. Simply center the ladybug in the viewfinder, hold down the button til it has focused. If you press it just a bit more, it'll take the shot. Do not take the shot yet. Once it's in focus, move the camera where you want it. Notice that it doesn't refocus. It's focus is still locked on the ladybug. Once you've moved the camera where you want, then press the button all the way down. Boom, rule of thirds.
You will also notice that the depth of field is extremely shallow in this picture, making for an interesting photograph. Depth of field is controlled by the aperture, or fstop. But we'll get into that later. Right now, adjust your ISO, adjust your white balance, and make sure you can take sharp, colorful pictures first, before experimenting with the depth of field or aperture.
Remember that this is just a tiny fraction of a much larger world, just like reefkeeping. Sorry for such a long reply, your tank is awesome.
On with it:
Do not use your flash. You want to use the lighting in your aquarium.
The high grain in your pictures is probably the result of a high ISO. Check your ISO and set it to 100 or 200. 400 and above and you'll start getting grain. There's alot more to ISO than grain, but that's another threadful of information that we won't go into just yet.
Say you set your camera to ISO 100, and it gives you a shutter speed slower than 1/60th. Any *handheld* shot slower than 1/60th of a second will most likely be blurry. Your heartbeat, pulse, your body trying to stay still on carpet, etc. will introduce blur in the shot. Anything moving quickly in front of the camera, like fish or waving coral arm, may also be blurry. What do you do?
Break out your tripod. Set it up and compose your shot. Be as still as possible when pushing the button, don't shake the floorboards with your feet, don't bump the tripod with your arm.
What can really help is setting the camera to timer mode. When I say timer mode, I mean that mode when you're taking pictures of your friends and you want to be in the shot. You set the timer, run up next to your friends, smile and wait for the camera. It usually lets out a beep or warning that it's about to go off. This gives you ample opportunity to click the button, walk away from the camera, and let it take the picture without any vibrations, assuming you're not jumping up and down on the floor when it goes off. Another good thing about timer mode is this: Say your fish is following you and you don't want him in your shot. The timer will give you the opportunity to move to another side of the tank, effectively guiding him away from that coral or non-moving shrimp that you're trying to make a superstar.
Say you want to take a picture of a fast moving fish. Then you'll have to ramp up your shutter speed, or use flash. Flash will freeze your fish, but it'll also blow out the colors and darken the background if used improperly. Without flash, you'll have to manually adjust your speed. Adjusting the speed will require you to change your aperture (f stop) as well. You can set the camera to shutter priority, set the speed, and it'll adjust the f stop for you. Likewise, aperture priority is opposite. You set the aperture and it determines the speed for it. Full manual gives control over both.
The other important thing is your white balance. Different types of lights give off a different color. Flourescent lights give off a green cast, halogen a yellow cast. Your camera most likely has a shade, cloudy, flourescent, halogen and sunny white balance settings. If you're subject is in the shade, you'll want to set to shade balance. If it's an overcast sky, you may set it to cloudy. If your subjects are under halogen lights, set it to the halogen (icon usually looks like a lightbulb) setting.
If you leave the white balance on auto, it'll be neutral. Flourescent lights will turn everything green, halogen lights will turn everything yellow, etc.
Setting your White Balance for each situation is crucial.
Here is a great page on it:
How to Set White Balance
CLIFF NOTES:
Just for the basics, set camera to auto.
Check your ISO. Set to 100, 200 for lowest grain.
Shutter Speed higher than 1/60th (1/125th, 1/160th, 1/250th, etc.) - You can handhold most of your shots.
Shutter Speed lower than 1/60th - Requires tripod.
Set White Balance. Experiment. Take the same shot with the same shutter/fstop settings, but change the white balance each time, til you get the color/exposure you want.
Oh, one more thing, Focus on your SUBJECT. If it has eyes, focus on its eyes. If the main part of a coral is its mouth, focus on its mouth. Focusing on a subject usually means putting the subject dead center in the viewfinder. Usually, this does not make for a good picture. What to do?
Notice that in this photograph, the ladybug is focused but not directly in the center? It's easy to do this. Simply center the ladybug in the viewfinder, hold down the button til it has focused. If you press it just a bit more, it'll take the shot. Do not take the shot yet. Once it's in focus, move the camera where you want it. Notice that it doesn't refocus. It's focus is still locked on the ladybug. Once you've moved the camera where you want, then press the button all the way down. Boom, rule of thirds.
You will also notice that the depth of field is extremely shallow in this picture, making for an interesting photograph. Depth of field is controlled by the aperture, or fstop. But we'll get into that later. Right now, adjust your ISO, adjust your white balance, and make sure you can take sharp, colorful pictures first, before experimenting with the depth of field or aperture.
Remember that this is just a tiny fraction of a much larger world, just like reefkeeping. Sorry for such a long reply, your tank is awesome.
Last edited:
Bifferwine
I am a girl
Wow, thanks for the tips! I'll have to read my instruction manual and figure out how to mess with all that stuff! I'm excited to try it out. Thanks again.
Alexander
Reef enthusiast
photographt 101 out of nowhere. thanks
Doc
I don't work for anybody
too bad I have no idea what the he!! any of that means. it looks like it may have been helpful
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
Alexander
Reef enthusiast
hopefully yote does lol
Doc
I don't work for anybody
yeah. His skills are matched only by my own.
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
Alexander
Reef enthusiast
yeah your skills combined with scratched acrylic tank = disaster!
Doc
I don't work for anybody
no kidding. too bad there is no way of fixing that tank without draining it
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
Alexander
Reef enthusiast
yeah no kiddin.... i missed the size of the one at your work what is it?
Doc
I don't work for anybody
90 gallons. I think. I cannot remember how tall it is.
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
Alexander
Reef enthusiast
cool. sounds like biff went out to party tonight, or lack of sound
Doc
I don't work for anybody
yeah, I have noticed a lack of her sarcasm tonight. I imagine we will catch a bunch of crap from her when she catches up on all our posts. She won't have much to say about your tank thread WHICH IS A GREAT THREAD WORTH VISITING: REDLINE'S TANK THREAD. since it is about angelfish. She isn't into them like we are.
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
Alexander
Reef enthusiast
yeah i know she doesnt like sharks too much either....... im like WTF!!!!! i know your down
Doc
I don't work for anybody
I will have a brown-banded bamboo in my tank within a month. Please visit Dr Marco's 125 experiment for great pics of a shark soon. You will love him. Sharks rock, so do octopuses (is that the plural?). but I don't have the chops to try one.
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
Doc
I don't work for anybody
no wait....octopi? whatever, it is getting late
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
Alexander
Reef enthusiast
ive got the chops and i cant wait. i am just waiting on moving sometime within a year to do it. its the only reason i have kept my 80 around. but i really dont feel like moving an octopus across town
Bifferwine
I am a girl
OMG you guys suck! Quit hijacking the BEST THREAD EVER! And yes, I was out partying. I just got home. It's 9:59 am :p. So much for classes today.
Doc
I don't work for anybody
like you have never hi-jacked a thread ever!!! You need to share the wealth - it is not fair for you to hog all the views on this forum
-Dr Marco :sfish:
-Dr Marco :sfish:
