How to take a good digital photo

[AussieGal]

Heres a tip I discovered last night. If you're water is even just SLIGHTLY poor quality its very difficult to get a decent photo. I had a large algae bloom in my [acronym:0b57a43126="Freshwater"]FW[/acronym:0b57a43126] tank about a month ago. I had cleared it up but there was a very slight tinge of green to the water - barely noticeable. After a bit of effort yesterday, I finally managed to get rid of it and the water is 100% crystal clear... and I finally have a couple of great pics. (Am just using a basic little sony digital camera). I had the lights off in the tank and used the flash.

[reefrunner69]

Originally Posted by jackdp

What lighting does everyone use when photographing in reef tanks? I have a 175W 10K [acronym:edf17e65fb="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:edf17e65fb] and 2 55W [acronym:edf17e65fb="Power compact fluorescent"]PC[/acronym:edf17e65fb] 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....

I use all my lights, 175W 12K and actinics. Just make sure you manually adjust your white balance. I use 3 white coffee filters in front of the lens and and measure the WB, from about the distance I'll be shooting. This seems to work real well. Another trick I've read about for people with very blue lights, like 20kk is to use a wet coffee filter with a yellow post it behind the coffee filter, and neasure in the light your going to be shooting in.

[jackdp]

My camera only has auto white balance and 5 or 6 preset custom settings The next model up had manual white but it cost about $200 more. I'm trying all the presets to see if any work better than auto, they are like daylight, cloudy, incandescent, and 3 fluorescent settings. I knew I shoud've splurged for the S7000

[reefrunner69]

When using the flash, I have had decent luck useing the flouresceant preset and then adjusting levels in photoshop with fish pics. Without the flash...I really don't know, none of the presets take real good pics with the flos on. Maybe try turning the actinics off and trying incandesceant or natural light settings. [acronym:e89724748a="For what its worth"]FWIW[/acronym:e89724748a], if you get bad colors, most can be remedied with a levels and curves adjustment in photoshop.

[jackdp]

Photoshop that's pricey

[reefrunner69]

You can do alot with photoshop elements, and quite a bit with older versions of PS like 6.0 which is dirt cheap since 7.0 and CS came out.

[BillyZ]

I stumbled across this link the other day and thouht it had some interesting info in it.

http://www.livingroom.org.au/photolo...ition_tips.php

lots of tips n tricks for digital photgraphy.

[dustybrannum]

Why do purples look blue when taking a picture with a digital cam? I have a Canon Power Shot G5

[reefrunner69]

I think it has to do with the layout and ratio of photo sensors. My fuji has the opposite problem, it tends to make certain shades of purple...blue.

[dustybrannum]

I apologize for the confusion but that is what I meant. If you saw the picture of my deep purple tang in the last [acronym:61911eaa85="Saltwater"]SW[/acronym:61911eaa85] photo contest he looked blue. Should I call Canon to try and fix this issue? I took some pictures of some purple violets and they were an electric blue on the camera.