Looking for Feedback.

bkv1997 · Jun 7, 2007

yea......

you also mentioned lighting? I have 800 watts of light over my tank, so don't think more is really possible without killing everything.

Do you use a flash for you photographs? I find them to seriously bleach the color of the corals and don't like the results.

Thanks in advance.
Brandon

revhtree · Jun 7, 2007

I think a Canonite could handle that curved glass!!

BTW isnt Nikon Guy a God Send? Thank you for all your help Bryce!

Nikon_Guy · Jun 7, 2007

When I want to take really great pictures of things in my tank I do indeed use a flash or strobe. Once in a great while I even use a tungsten spot. These are off camera units and designed to give a different type of light than your normal on camera flash.

This was taken with a strobe unit mounted about eight inches above the water line filtered though a soft box.

If you have a flash head for your camera, you can get very pleasing results by pointing the head at a reflector (use a piece of white foam core and you have a homemade reflector) positioned above the tank and let the light bounce down into the tank. A general principle of lighting is that when lighting something in nature, the larger the light source and the closer it is to the subject, the more pleasing and natural that light will be on the subject. (This is REALLY important when doing photographs of women) The reason on camera flashes cause rather undesirable results is that they send out an intense beam of light in a very narrow plane. This type of light tends to be unflattering and will indeed wash thing out. Using a bounce board to bounce that narrow light off of spreads it out, softens it and makes it much more pleasing. After doing all of this, then you have to make sure and meter it properly for the look you want. Play with the manual settings. You guys just don't know how easy you have it being able to see the images right away and make corrections as you go.

If you donâ€™t have a flash that you can swivel to point upward, with the small area you are dealing with, you could try to fashion a piece of aluminum foil under the camera mounted flash and funnel it upward. I have never tried this but have seen rather nice results from people that have.