Attempting photos

DarkReefer · Sep 22, 2023

Hey guys,

After recently seeing Jedi's thread and the amazing shots they're taking. It got me motivated to pull out the D5100 camera & tripod and give it a shot myself.

Now I've never been particularly great at photos, but will occasionally take the odd one that I feel is decent or semi proud of (including outside of reef photography). I don't have that much practice up my sleeve as I'll only pick up the camera once every blue moon for a brief time or a single group of shots nor do I consider myself to be any decent but I've always been envious of those who're able to capture beauty in a shot.

I had a quick read of the how to take pictures of your corals thread that's pinned in this sub forum, mainly reading the first post.. tried to figure out the settings on the camera and away I went.

Here's a few shots that have some things I like - would be great to get some feedback/advice as who knows, maybe it'll keep me motivated to keep practicing and produce some better stuff!

I was happy with the focus on the blenny hiding in the rockwork and that you can make out some details around the works like algae etc. Not a fan over the overexposed sand, or the motion blur from the xenia.
I don't know much about the details of the shot but I'll provide the info that I can read in the photo details.
f/5.3 - 2 sec exposure - ISO-100

Probably one of my clearer images I've done of this morph
f/11 - 1.3 sec exposure - ISO-100

This one is also one of the clearest shots I think I've taken of this group.
same settings

Thanks for looking!

BanZI29 · Sep 22, 2023

The first one, looks like the focus is only in the center, and the rest is blurred a bit. Did you use a long throw zoom lens?
2nd and 3rd ones are good but a little dark. shop it to bring up the brightness or open up your F stop a couple clicks.
are you using a filter for the blue light?

Jedi1199 · Sep 23, 2023

Aside from making the effort to learn what your camera settings actually mean and how one affects the others, the next thing I would suggest is a decent post editing program.

I personally use Adobe Lightroom. For me, it allows me the ability to tweak the photos to better represent what I see in the tank for the purpose of posting on the internet (like here). Idk if that would be the best program for something that would be published like a magazine article or whatever.

Jedi1199 · Sep 23, 2023

Here is another tip to maybe help you get what settings do what a little easier.

Take your cell phone, turn your camera on and go to "Pro" mode. This lets you treat your phone camera just like the DSLR. The difference is, you can see right on the screen how changing settings affects what the camera sees.

Also make sure to save your images in RAW format. This makes post editing far easier as there is FAR more for the software to work with. Your phone will have that feature as well.

My Adobe Lightroom is also shared with my phone so I can take and edit pictures right on my phone.

Honestly, I have seen many examples of cell phone pictures that rival any DSLR.

maroun.c · Sep 23, 2023

1.3 and 2 second exposure won't give you sharp pictures as u will get a lot of motion blurr from the coral swaying in the water ...
F11 for the mushroom shots is way to narrow of an aperture which is causing you to require that slow shutter speed which is causing the blur, darker images and noise in the pictures.

Iso 100 can easily bumped up to 400-600 without noise for most of cameras in use these days. Newer cameras are capable of much more without causing noise.

My advice would be to go back to the stickied articles and have a good go at them as they describe the parameters properly for you to get a picture that with minimum post processing would be a keeper.

Parameters used won't allow for an amazing picture even with heavy post processing you need to master the exposure parameters and experiment with those and that would improve your results. Then one needs to look at framing, foscuing and other few things to take the pictures to an even higher level.

Jedi1199 · Sep 23, 2023

maroun.c said:
1.3 and 2 second exposure won't give you sharp pictures as u will get a lot of motion blurr from the coral swaying in the water ...
F11 for the mushroom shots is way to narrow of an aperture which is causing you to require that slow shutter speed which is causing the blur, darker images and noise in the pictures.

Iso 100 can easily bumped up to 400-600 without noise for most of cameras in use these days. Newer cameras are capable of much more without causing noise.

My advice would be to go back to the stickied articles and have a good go at them as they describe the parameters properly for you to get a picture that with minimum post processing would be a keeper.

Parameters used won't allow for an amazing picture even with heavy post processing you need to master the exposure parameters and experiment with those and that would improve your results. Then one needs to look at framing, foscuing and other few things to take the pictures to an even higher level.

This is why I suggested using the phone in "pro mode". You can get a realistic idea of what the final shot will be before you even shoot it. It won't be ideal for sure, but it will give you a base point to adjust from.

Heck, I have even started with the auto settings.. "This is what the camera says to use.. let me adjust from here"

Now, my photos are far from professional level, but I think a novice would benefit from at least a decent starting point.

I agree that the stickies here are invaluable information, but a complete novice will read that and then say "umm what?"

Alexraptor · Sep 23, 2023

Also worth mention that always make sure that you camera lens is pointed directly perpendicular to the glass or water surface. Any significant angle will cause refraction that will blur and distort the image.

maroun.c · Sep 23, 2023

Jedi1199 said:
This is why I suggested using the phone in "pro mode". You can get a realistic idea of what the final shot will be before you even shoot it. It won't be ideal for sure, but it will give you a base point to adjust from.

Heck, I have even started with the auto settings.. "This is what the camera says to use.. let me adjust from here"

Now, my photos are far from professional level, but I think a novice would benefit from at least a decent starting point.

I agree that the stickies here are invaluable information, but a complete novice will read that and then say "umm what?"

No harm wanting to use a camera or learning photography. A camera abd a decent lense abd knowledgeable fingers behind the camera will beat the best phone anytime. It's not rocket science after all and it's fun to learn and experiment. Focusing speed abd accuracy and shutter lag at least are way ahead of mobile camera phones and most of the time u will miss nice fish poses with mobile phone camera.
Do I have thousands if pictures taken with my phones? Yes sure but when I'm in for quality pictures I use a camera.
Look at any mobile phone camera on a pc screen abd nit on a tiny phone screen and ull see the lack of resolution , excessive noise, unsharoness and motion blurr, yet we have gone accustomed to seing unsharp pictures on social media that we don't hotice it anymore. Worse yer we resort to filters that smooth faves and think this looks nicer. The difference in perception of a good picture between me and my 15 year old daughter is scary!

Cameras will show you the picture directly after it's been taken and the new mirorless cameras will show you how the picture will come.put before it's taken as well.

Some.of the stickies here might be a bit advanced but there are some that are quite simple and Straightforward which would give anyone woth a camera a good head start. Posting pictures and listening to constrictive criticism will add to ones knowledge and picture taking skills would develop.fadter than we think.

Yes a mobile.phone.and the auto.mode would give instant gratitude but trust me the satisfaction of using a camera with manual parameters and obtaining quality shots is unmatched . I was taught by a photographer back in the mid 90s and for six.month the only camera I was allowed to touch was a zenit 125 ttl full manual even manual focus.. my first 36 pics roll of film had no usable pictures, so did.my few following riles yet when I started noting each picture parameters and looking at what worked and what note my jeepers rate went from.4-5 pics out of a 36 pics film up to 36/36. It took para.eters planing focus control waiting for the fish to be where we want .... and it was a great feeling after each picture.
I understand that we want ease of use with modern cameras yet there should still be a human expertise aspect to keep us motivated abd to.keep the art of photography alive rather than rely on auto settings in a phone that produce half decent pictures which we grow.to.perceive as amazing.

This is by no.means to bash your opinion and I honestly ask you to consider with an open mind.

We are now blaming manufacturers that camera autofocus eye detection mode is not working.well.in birds in flight where as it is the job of the photographer to focus in the first place and tell the camera what to do rather than have an algorithm.inside the camera that guides focusing, metering in camera post processing... I'm.all for AI and machine learning but some arts like photography were always an art and will.disappear when we stop understanding the principles and resorting to mobile phone shots or even creating pics via AI algorithms on PCs...

maroun.c · Sep 23, 2023

Your Guide to Aquarium Photography #1 - Getting the Basics

Tank photography has been and continues to be a challenging topic for many reefers. When I started my tank, I was using an SLR (a non-digital for the newer generation); yes, we used to shoot using film and wait for days to finish the roll and get it developed. I remember taking notes on how each...

www.reef2reef.com

Your Guide to Aquarium Photography #3 - Settings for Fish, Coral, and FTS Photos

In our previous article in this Your Guide to Aquarium Photography series, we looked at how you should prepare for a photoshoot of your reef. In this third installment, we will be focusing our attention on camera settings/parameters and how to get them right for fish, coral, and FTS photos...

www.reef2reef.com

Here are two very straightforward articles to get one started with aquarium photography. Check them out, no harm replicating parameters for a starting point and modifying according to results. Do post pictures for us to help you with parameters till you get the quality you want.

gbroadbridge · Sep 23, 2023

Just saw this thread and thought I'd offer some advice

Don't stress about bumping the ISO on the camera. Just about any decent mirrorless/SLR camera made in the last 10 years is not going to get out of control noisy.

Think about shutter speed to freeze the action, and aperture to set your desired depth of field, and let the ISO go where it wants.

I just grabbed this shot just now following that concept.

This is an out of camera JPG no post processing. I set White balance to Kelvin and dialled in 10000, set shutter to 1/125 adjusted aperture for the effect I desired and the camera chose 3200 ISO.

Unless you're planning on printing a billboard, no one is going to notice any noise.

DarkReefer · Sep 24, 2023

maroun.c said:
Your Guide to Aquarium Photography #1 - Getting the Basics

Tank photography has been and continues to be a challenging topic for many reefers. When I started my tank, I was using an SLR (a non-digital for the newer generation); yes, we used to shoot using film and wait for days to finish the roll and get it developed. I remember taking notes on how each...

www.reef2reef.com

Your Guide to Aquarium Photography #3 - Settings for Fish, Coral, and FTS Photos

In our previous article in this Your Guide to Aquarium Photography series, we looked at how you should prepare for a photoshoot of your reef. In this third installment, we will be focusing our attention on camera settings/parameters and how to get them right for fish, coral, and FTS photos...

www.reef2reef.com

Here are two very straightforward articles to get one started with aquarium photography. Check them out, no harm replicating parameters for a starting point and modifying according to results. Do post pictures for us to help you with parameters till you get the quality you want.

Thank you for linking those and all your suggestions and advice!
I think I just read the very top sticky thread without looking too much deeper, my bad...
I'll be sure to check those threads out though and have another go! It was a little frustrating with the shutter speed taking as long as it was. Ideally I'd like to be able to take some great shots without having to set up a tripod each time, and I think the much higher shutter speeds etc will be able to help achieve that.
I'll post some more pictures when I've taken some!

Jedi1199 said:
Aside from making the effort to learn what your camera settings actually mean and how one affects the others, the next thing I would suggest is a decent post editing program.

I personally use Adobe Lightroom. For me, it allows me the ability to tweak the photos to better represent what I see in the tank for the purpose of posting on the internet (like here). Idk if that would be the best program for something that would be published like a magazine article or whatever.

Jedi1199 said:
Here is another tip to maybe help you get what settings do what a little easier.

Take your cell phone, turn your camera on and go to "Pro" mode. This lets you treat your phone camera just like the DSLR. The difference is, you can see right on the screen how changing settings affects what the camera sees.

Also make sure to save your images in RAW format. This makes post editing far easier as there is FAR more for the software to work with. Your phone will have that feature as well.

My Adobe Lightroom is also shared with my phone so I can take and edit pictures right on my phone.

Honestly, I have seen many examples of cell phone pictures that rival any DSLR.

Appreciate the information and the suggestion to use the phone camera to help me try and learn some of the settings.
I think I recall trying to use this previously a couple of years ago. Never did get a shot that I thought was really great, but did get some good ones.
The Adobe stuff I'll probably pass on for the moment and just try and work on taking better initial photos. (don't need another subscription to something! lol).

Thanks to everyone for your advice and guidance and taking the time.
I know my photos aren't anything special at the moment, but hopefully in future I can improve on that once I've done some reading up and additional playing with the camera/settings.
I'll post some more pics when I can!