How to take a good digital photo

[Doraemon]

Kevin, what program are you using to edit your photos?

[Doraemon]

just saw the thread on this

[ReefLady]

I use the same camera as RR, and really don't have much at all to add to his excellent advice. The only thing that stuck out to me was this:

ISO 400

That's going to give you really grainy pics. I almost always shoot in ISO 100. If it's a really dark setting, I might bump it up to 200. If you don't have the brightest lights, compensate by adjusting the exposure (EV) if you can. Auto setting is 0, and can usually be bumped up and down by .3, .7, .1.0, etc.

HTH!

[BONESTOCK]

What's ISO?? I have Auto, 100, 200 and 400 on my Olympus C-740.....what should I put the camera at?

Also I can't figure out how to manually focus on my camera...

and I still don't understand the EV and aperature.

Shutter speed is basically moving object...make it faster....slower or still objects make it slower.....right?

[skys]

Shutter speed..Good focus and good iso!

[cmor1701d]

I think Kevin said in a prior post that he uses PhotoShop to 'process' his pics prior to posting.

[BillyZ]

Bonestock: Shutter Speed also can be affected by the amount of light. The less light you have the longer the shutter needs to stay open.

Here's something I gleaned from a Kodak web page:

The ISO setting controls the camera's sensitivity to light. Use a lower ISO setting in brightly lit scenes, use a higher ISO setting for low-light scenes.

AUTO (default)—the camera automatically sets an ISO speed based on scene brightness. Ideal for general picture taking.

ISO 100—ideal for daylight pictures in bright sun, when fine detail is needed. Great for portraits or nature scenes.

ISO 200—ideal for cloudy, overcast days. Great when you need extra speed without sacrificing image quality.

ISO 400—ideal for dusk or night pictures when flash is prohibited; great for pictures at sporting events when you need to stop the action; and excellent for indoor shots, with or without flash.

[millipede]

I have one small tip that can make a difference for some... clean the outside of the tank... If you want an example of what smudged glass looks like find the first pic I posted about the coconut shells. It was a terrible pic only because the glass had fingerprints from my little girl on it. It wasn't a digital photo but this situation would affect any camera out there. I was at walmart today and found a cheap camera. It's a concord something or other. It was marked down from 99 dollars to $85. That sounded good to me. 3.1mp. digital zoom not optical but I don't care... I had to pay another 23$ for a 128mb mem card but still, it'll work for me. My first pic with it is that coconut smiley....
the inside of the glass should be clean too but smudges on the outside aren't always so obvious.... hth

[Tripoli]

Great thread here....

I'm stuck with a little Cannon PowerShot camera. It can take pics with a res up to 1600x1200, but I have very few options when it comes to changing the camera's settings. It does have a macro setting which helps a LOT, but I'd really like it if I could figure out how to change the shutter speed, etc. Most of my pics come out over exposed.

Any advice?

Too bad my nice Rebel is a film camera.

[jackdp]

What lighting does everyone use when photographing in reef tanks? I have a 175W 10K [acronym:34438f0cf0="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:34438f0cf0] and 2 55W [acronym:34438f0cf0="Power compact fluorescent"]PC[/acronym:34438f0cf0] actinics. I've tried different lighting combinations but just wonder what anyone else's results have been. If I use all lights on the pics come out okay but a little blue. When just actinics are on the corals look great but the pics look VERY blue, I don't think the camera knows how to deal with all the blue light. Do you use the flash? Any filters on the lense? Just fishing more other people's ideas....