digital photography 101
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Forum Name: General Discussion
Forum Description: Posts that don't fit in any of the other categories.
URL: http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1429
Printed Date: August 01 2026 at 7:37pm
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Topic: digital photography 101
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Subject: digital photography 101
Date Posted: December 06 2003 at 10:38pm
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I am not a photographer, but was asked how I bring out the colors in some pics. Perhaps my experience will help.
Color seems to come out pretty good under all Fluorescent lights. It's those high Kelvin MH that wash out color. They are just so darn bright with light energy! I find that under the bluer MH (10,000K and above) digital pics always look very blue as in this pic from Seti007's tank with two blue MH. The pic on the right is how it looked after the one 6500K(?) MH came one:  
The right pic looks better because of the one MH that is not blue. In the case where that option is not available, it takes more creativity. I use a flash and also try to reduce the brightness on the finished pic by using a computer graphics program. This is Ryan Willden next to his beautiful tank. I found that the top pic, taken without flash, actually came out with more color than others of that day, such as the close up (small pic to save space here) of the Brain Coral, GS Polyps & Tomato. The difference was the bit of natural sunlight illuminating part of the picture. This seems to fool my camera into seeing more color, whereas when only the bright blue of the MH is seen by the camera, it seems to diminish other colors.  
Here is the same scene with flash. Using the graphics program, I also tried to enhance the colors on this flashed pic, but went a bit too far, don't you think. 
This flashed pic of Diverdan and his tank worked out quite well for color, but the focus was a little off for some reason: 
And then there are times when you want the deep blue color. I'm quite pleased with how this Reef Tour pic of Danny Lueck's Maxima Clam and Allens Damsel turned out: 
Someone with even a little photography training can probably tell me how to adjust the shutter speed and aperature to get a more desirable effect, but so far I'm still an automatic exposure kind of beginner. Good luck to y'all and happy shooting! ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member 
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Replies:
Posted By: Ryan Willden
Date Posted: December 07 2003 at 10:04am
Hey Mark, great pics. I definetly liked the picture of my tank at the top better than the one underneath it. It made me look more tan...  Just kidding. You do a great job shooting pics.
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Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: December 07 2003 at 12:18pm
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Lately, when I take pics, I offer to give the pics to the person on a disk since there is usually several meg of image files. If I have taken pics of anyones tank in the past (oboy, seti007 and others)and not offered, please just ask for them. It's kind of fun and sometimes I come out with some pretty good images.
Mark ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: dianatabor
Date Posted: December 07 2003 at 6:06pm
I always take my pictures under 10,000K Premium Daylight PC lighting with my flash turned off using my digital camera's action setting to avoid blurs. I usually get pretty true colors. Here's an example of one of my photos (no color or lighting adjustments):
My only problem is that the Figi Pink sand in my tank is VERY light and often appears washed out in my photos. Does anyone have a tip for preventing this while maintaining the brightness of the other colors in the photo? Thanks! Diana |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 07 2003 at 7:17pm
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Im my case Mark was kind enough to wait while I downloaded the pics to my computer. Not having a camera myself, to date those are the only pics I have of my tank. I been really good all year so hopefully Santa will be bringing me a dig camera this Xmas
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Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: December 08 2003 at 12:41pm
Diana, excellent. Please show us more of what a belly dancer/photographer can do. More pics, I mean 
Asad, yeah I forgot about that. Hope Santa leaves a DC in your stocking. My Sony brand of DC has the new lithium rechargable batteries. These batteries are the only way to go IMO. It also seems to be less complicated to use than a Canon that my mother bought. Oh I forgot, I bought my Sony from you at RC Willey! Now that you are at Ultimate Electronics just south of where TPF was, will you be helping Santa choose the camera? Any good bargains we should know about there? ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: coreyk
Date Posted: December 08 2003 at 2:23pm
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really like the pic diana ... lighting is very clean and really shows off the colors! you might be able to put some sort of a piece of semi-transparent cloth under the light or even move the light away a little to diffuse it the light a little more. then you might not loose the color of your sand.
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contrast, saturation, etc...Posted By: Adam Blundell
Date Posted: December 08 2003 at 6:21pm
Ever bought a book on corals? Ever looked at the books in pet stores? Most of the authors we have had visit our club have shared with us their ways to enhance their pictures. If you sometimes wonder why your corals in your tank don't look as good as those in the Sprung book or Paletta book or Borneman book.... it's probably because you aren't spending enough time altering your pictures. So is it cheating????? Sure, but who cares. Adam ------------- Come to a meeting, they�re fun! |
coreyk wrote:Posted By: coreyk
Date Posted: December 08 2003 at 6:55pm
ha! just askin <grin> |
Posted By: coreyk
Date Posted: December 08 2003 at 9:43pm
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ok here are a couple of shots ... the new camera got here today
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no photoshop... just straight pics w/ VHO lighting. little blurry - i'm off to get a tripod tomorrow!!! sorry if this wasnt a "post your pic thread" ... i wasn't sure ... 
Posted By: tfowers
Date Posted: December 09 2003 at 8:32am
| Wow - great zoos! See if you can increase the depth of field, might help. Got any frags? |
Posted By: coreyk
Date Posted: December 09 2003 at 8:55am
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thanks man! i pulled the camera out of the box shot a couple of shots. slapped on the macro and shot a couple more. i have NOT looked at the manual or or any instructions yet... but the potential for fun seems endless to me, i've got lots to learn! no frags yet -- my tank is still getting its feet ( 6 months and counting ), but i'll post them here as soon as i do! thanks for the compliments! |
Posted By: Jake Pehrson
Date Posted: December 09 2003 at 9:17am
I would say it is not cheating unless you purposely change the picture to misrepresent the actual specimen you are taking a picture of. Most digital cameras do not give real to life colors, but with photoshop you can fix that and provide a closer representation of what you are photographing. ------------- Jake Pehrson Murray http://coralplanet.com" rel="nofollow - coralplanet.com http://utahbeeranch.com" rel="nofollow - :) |
Posted By: SSpargur
Date Posted: December 09 2003 at 10:31am
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Corey - When you got some frags of 2nd and 4th Zoo pics, let me know. I would trade you for some of my Zoos. I have about 30 colors of them now. ------------- Sean Spargur West Valley, UT |
Posted By: kini
Date Posted: December 09 2003 at 1:24pm
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As long as we are sharing pictures here is one of my favorites. The picture itself is not that great but it is a bamboo shark that I hatched we my tank was more of a FOWLR than a reef. |
Posted By: coreyk
Date Posted: December 09 2003 at 6:38pm
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sean: np! a trade would be great! i''l let you and tflowers know when i have some. i'll start a new thread sometime soon and post the rest of my zoos. kini: nice shark! very pretty ... how big will it get? jake: thats also much how i feel ... i was just curious if people had any strong opinions about it. photoshop is one of the things that i do really well and i know how easy it is to make something look completely different that the reality... so, i guess i would say that i do care if the images i see images are edited to "enhance" the picture and not just "represent" the picture. i guess, i would equate it to telling a "fish story" <pun intended>. Everything gets just a little bit better and that 13" brown that you caught turns into a 17" by the time you tell your buddy about it |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: December 09 2003 at 7:08pm
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Beautiful shark.
Speaking of fish stories, if the Ranger hadn't stopped me at the Jordanelle boat ramp to have me do a survey I would have said this cutthroat was 15". He recorded it as 18"  Which pic do you think I should use to brag?
  ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: SSpargur
Date Posted: December 11 2003 at 6:30pm
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This picture is taken with my Sony F-717. The lighting was 220 watts of actinic blue and 500 watts of 10k MH lighting. I would say that the best advice that I can give is to always make sure that your using the optical zoom (never digital zoom) and use a tripod to steady the shot. I love snapping off pictures, not very good at it yet, but I'm getting there. I'm also a firm believer in using macro lenses for close up shots and cleaning them up in Photoshop.
------------- Sean Spargur West Valley, UT |
Posted By: coreyk
Date Posted: December 11 2003 at 6:32pm
| beautiful shot sean! |
Posted By: WhiteReef
Date Posted: December 11 2003 at 7:20pm
| Just a fun site to see how different digital cameras stack up take a look at http://www.dpreview.com - www.dpreview.com as they have several indepth reviews of various cameras. |