how to take pictures of your corals (camera settings tutorial)

[surfn]

Whether you have a point and shoot camera, or a digital SLR w/ or without a macro lens.......here are some tips to figure out how to shoot pictures of your corals.

Keep in mind, I am mostly familiar with Canon camera's.......if you have a Nikon.....and know these settings should be the same......although they may be labelled or marked differently.

setting up the equipment:

-set the camera up on a tri-pod
-turn off ALL pumps providing any kind of water circulation
-make sure the lens is perpendicular to the glass....if its at an angle...this will distort the picture and make it look blurry
-set the lens zoom and focus to manual, and adjust by hand by looking through the eye piece.

camera settings:

-shoot at the highest/finest/largest setting possible (RAW if possible)
-Auto White Balance should be fine to shoot in (if you get advanced enough you can mess around with this setting)
-set ISO to 0 for now, but if shots are coming out too dark or blurry, you can adjust up to 200. any higher than 400 and pictures will start to look grainy.

-set the shooting mode into APERATURE PRIORITY (Av mode on Canon camera's located on a dial on the top of the camera, by setting the f/stop manually, the camera will automatically adjust the shutter spead based on the available light)
-set the f/stop of the camera to b/w f/9 and f/13. (the higher the f/stop, the smaller the aperature....and the greater the depth of field....however....as the depth of field gets larger, the sharpness will degrade........thus f/9-13 seems to be a good sweet spot for coral shooting)
-use the self timer function....so when you press the button the camera will count down before taking the picture
-MAKE SURE TO TURN THE FLASH OFF

Post-picture Processing:

-if you took the picture at a higher setting, you will need to shrink the picture to 800x600 pixels in order for proper web page viewing. this will also make the file size smaller.
-adjust brightness, contrast, expsure, white balance, tone, color saturation etc. (takes some trial and error before you know what you are doing)
-make sure to convert any RAW images to JPEGS, after making your adjustments.

Advanced Settings:

-exposure settings......normally this should be set to 0 Ev/Av. but you can play around with this if certain parts of your picture look too over exposed or under exposed.
- (for canon dSLR's) - set "long exposure noise reduction" to ON, set "mirror lock up" to ON


this is a wonderful website that explains everything in detail.
http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html


if you have anything to add, feel free to post. i will sticky this thread.

 

[surfn]

you can't set your ISO to zero? i can on my camera, and on my g/f's point-and-shoot camera.

i can also set her focus to manual on her canon point-and-shoot.....but you have to go into full manual mode if i remember correctly.

you are correct about the white ballance, i never liked how my custom white balance looked on this camera though.....so i just do it in the program in RAW format......however it only lets me go up to 10k.....but thats makes it pretty good for my purposes since my bulb is around 14k.

 

[surfn]

I think your misreading your ISO setting... If you have a rebel, it's 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600... I've never seen any camara you can go below ISO 80.

You can set a p&s into manual focus mode, what I'm saying is that looking down the veiwfinder of an SLR your looking down your lense and seeing real live image. When you look down the viewfinder of a p&s your looking at a little lcd screen inside the viewfinder which would be very low resolution. So the camera is going to most of the time pick a better focus than you can considering the level of detail you can see on a tiny lcd screen.

your right about the ISO, i must have been thinking about something else, possibly the exposure setting.

good to know about the point and shoot......didnt realize that was a tiny LCD inside the viewfinder.

 

[gflat65]

Good info. My P&S HP camera didn't allow any manual focus (other than the wide angle/telescoping function) and liked to grab the most obscure items to focus on. I never knew what I had until I put it on the computer.

One thing I'd add is to use a remote switch over using the timer. It just seems more fluid to me. I can make a quick adjustment and still snap the shot quickly afterwards.

 

[surfn]

Good info. My P&S HP camera didn't allow any manual focus (other than the wide angle/telescoping function) and liked to grab the most obscure items to focus on. I never knew what I had until I put it on the computer.

One thing I'd add is to use a remote switch over using the timer. It just seems more fluid to me. I can make a quick adjustment and still snap the shot quickly afterwards.

do you have a link to the remote shutter switch you bought? i've been thinking about getting one.

 

[zoanthidsrock]

Very Usefull Thread

 

[gnoles]

do you have a link to the remote shutter switch you bought? i've been thinking about getting one.

Depends on your camera... My first Canon P&S had an infrared remote. I bought a manual shutter release for my DSLR.

 

[Blackhawk Fan]

Kudos to this thread, thanks!

 

[TANKSALOT]

Nice read.......
I am just getting into shooting coral PIC's and I learned a lot reading this thread.

TANKSALOT

 

[MrPhatstacks]

Whether you have a point and shoot camera, or a digital SLR w/ or without a macro lens.......here are some tips to figure out how to shoot pictures of your corals.

Keep in mind, I am mostly familiar with Canon camera's.......if you have a Nikon.....and know these settings should be the same......although they may be labelled or marked differently.

setting up the equipment:

-set the camera up on a tri-pod
-turn off ALL pumps providing any kind of water circulation
-make sure the lens is perpendicular to the glass....if its at an angle...this will distort the picture and make it look blurry
-set the lens zoom and focus to manual, and adjust by hand by looking through the eye piece.

camera settings:

-shoot at the highest/finest/largest setting possible (RAW if possible)
-Auto White Balance should be fine to shoot in (if you get advanced enough you can mess around with this setting)
-set ISO to 0 for now, but if shots are coming out too dark or blurry, you can adjust up to 200. any higher than 400 and pictures will start to look grainy.

-set the shooting mode into APERATURE PRIORITY (Av mode on Canon camera's located on a dial on the top of the camera, by setting the f/stop manually, the camera will automatically adjust the shutter spead based on the available light)
-set the f/stop of the camera to b/w f/9 and f/13. (the higher the f/stop, the smaller the aperature....and the greater the depth of field....however....as the depth of field gets larger, the sharpness will degrade........thus f/9-13 seems to be a good sweet spot for coral shooting)
-use the self timer function....so when you press the button the camera will count down before taking the picture
-MAKE SURE TO TURN THE FLASH OFF

Post-picture Processing:

-if you took the picture at a higher setting, you will need to shrink the picture to 800x600 pixels in order for proper web page viewing. this will also make the file size smaller.
-adjust brightness, contrast, expsure, white balance, tone, color saturation etc. (takes some trial and error before you know what you are doing)
-make sure to convert any RAW images to JPEGS, after making your adjustments.

Advanced Settings:

-exposure settings......normally this should be set to 0 Ev/Av. but you can play around with this if certain parts of your picture look too over exposed or under exposed.
- (for canon dSLR's) - set "long exposure noise reduction" to ON, set "mirror lock up" to ON


this is a wonderful website that explains everything in detail.
Ximina's Photography [Lessons - Index]


if you have anything to add, feel free to post. i will sticky this thread.

:bigsmile:thanks

 

[TonyT]

This is an awesome thread.I have been struggling to get some good shots. I have a Canon XSI and was thinking it was the camera, now I see it was the operator. LOL Will definately be trying some of these tips.

 

[jbrown11352]

Thanks for the tips!

 

[DarkSephiroth]

I got a Nikon CoolPix S200 and i can't make the setting RAW, any way to go around it?

 

[gparr]

The CoolPix S200 is not capable of capturing images in the RAW format. You'll have to set a custom white balance to get shots of coral that show their true colors. The steps for setting a custom white balance should be described in the manual.
Gary

 

[thanhreef]

I love this thread. Thanks for the tips!

 

[likemike99]

never realized about being perpendicular. thanks.

 

[hokey1499]

nice write up. you've confirmed that I'm doing things right

 

[itsmel]

Great information, and thank you for all the tips. I will be taking more pics of my tank in the near future, and this thread will be a great help!

 

[Alattner]

great info now if i just had a nice camera like everyone else does to use these helpful tips

 

[seaweed88]

Thanks for the advice...