some pics, critique

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godzilla

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
97
Location
Westerville, OH
I took these pics tonight and I am wondering if some of you guys/girls can look and tell me what settings I may want to adjust to make these better. I am using a canon S410 point and shoot 4MP. I set it on the highest resolution. I set the iso speed to 200, because 400 is unusable on this camera in low light situations, the grainyness is unbearable and unfixable with photoshop

i think the hardest part is getting the camera to focus on the fish, instead of the rocks or something else...

thanks for any input...

Mike

cichlids1a.jpg


cichlids2a.jpg


cichlids3a.jpg
 
I think you pulled off some nice shots, most of these people have more experience then I do shooting fish, the only thing I would check, is your camera set for Macro?
 
it is set for macro but I dont understand that setting all too well. I can be at one distance and its perfectly clear, and one inch closer is a complete blur. I have some learning to do!!
 
I bought a new camera, for other reasons, but figured id see if I can do any better, and unfortunately its no better. I am using manual focus now which is hard to do (for me). im sure ill get the hang of it.

the new camera is a Canon S3 IS

here are a few shots:
 

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I'm truly sorry godzilla, your pics are fantastic and there isn't much more anyone can do for you. :)

Joking aside, your pics are really good, you just need to tweak them. I assume you did not use flash as there is no sign of wash out. What you need now is to take the pics through a photo editor such as photoshop. Here is an example with just using auto-level:
 

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godzilla

Make sure you have the autofocus on when shooting fish. It helps to focus at a closer distance so that you can get better shots of the fish in the entire frame (so you dont have to crop too far down). That will help you out tremendously (if your not using it now).

Yellow labs are very tricky to take pictures of...either they are too dark, or too washed out. Its better to go more towards underexposed (darker), than overexposed.

Heres a pic of my yellow lab...took me quite a while to get a good one of him and I think its still too dark...
http://www.verse914.com/yellowlabmale01.jpg
 
here's another I took after taking some advice on a photography forum....

still not exactly what I want but getting much better....
 

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Amazing pictures, I really need to take some better pics.
 
One thing that i do, with autofocus, is focus on an object very similar to the fish (i.e. a rock/plant) and then hold the shutter button half way, until a fish gets in the perfect position.

As well, focus uses contrast in order to gauge if it has focus or not. Using something that has a line of light/dark in it aids greatly.

Macro function gives the camera more preference to focus very closely. It will try the closest settings first.

I'm not into the SLR scene, i just have a nikon coolpix 5900, but i am insanely happy with its macro. I just wish it could take in more light. My photos without flash come either blurry (low ISO setting) or underexposed (high ISO numbers) with a larger sensor of an SLR, it can allow more light in during the same shutter speed. Perhaps my next camera will be an SLR :) My dad has a Nikon D70, i just have to steal that one of these days :)
 
Yeah, I use manual mode. My camera has macro and super macro settings (as close as 1cm focus) I have a feature where I can use manual focus to get close, then press a button that will auto-focus the fine tuning. Its a great camera, i think I want to set up some external lighting just for taking tank photos, but im not THAT into photography just yet :)

The trick you are talking about worked great for my first camera, the S410.
 
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