Need help with aquarium photography

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fire905safety
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Need help with aquarium photography

Post by fire905safety » Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:33 am

I am setting up a 150 g tank and would like to take pics to make a diary of my progress. All my pictures have been turning out really bad. Usually the pictures are very blue where I can not see inside the tank. My camera is a sony slr camera. Is there anyone familiar with this type of camera that can give me some help. I have been spending a lot of money over at gerwin's and I'm excited to show off my new toy.

Scott Allen
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Re: Need help with aquarium photography

Post by Scott Allen » Wed Apr 18, 2012 1:18 pm

fire905safety wrote:I am setting up a 150 g tank and would like to take pics to make a diary of my progress. All my pictures have been turning out really bad. Usually the pictures are very blue where I can not see inside the tank. My camera is a sony slr camera. Is there anyone familiar with this type of camera that can give me some help. I have been spending a lot of money over at gerwin's and I'm excited to show off my new toy.
What type of lighting do you have? I have heard a lot of people using a white card under the blue lights then adjust to that. Should help balance out the colors.

Also if you are using MH or LED it can help to turn off the flow. The shimmer can make photography difficult.

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bluwtr
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Re: Need help with aquarium photography

Post by bluwtr » Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:20 pm

Your white balance is out of adjustment. By shooting on auto, the camera decides what "white" is. What you need to do is use a styrofoam plate or other waterproof white item and stick it in the tank. You will then set a custom white balance by taking a picture of that white item in the tank with the lights on. What this does is it tells the camera that "this is what white looks like under these lighting conditions."

Here is a link that can give you more and better info than I can.

HTH

http://reeftools.com/live/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=38

fire905safety
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Re: Need help with aquarium photography

Post by fire905safety » Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:10 pm

Thanks for the help guys. The pics are looking great. I couldn't figure out how to do the plate think but, I did figure out how to manualy set it. Now I have to figure out how to get them from Picasa to a post.

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bluwtr
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My SetUp: 55g, 70#'s lr, 40#'s ls, 10 DIY acrylic sump, in sump skimmer, 1 Jebao wp20 and 2 Koralia 1050 controlled by a Smart Wave, DIY LED's--12 RB, 10 UV's and 8 CW.
Location: Gautier
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Re: Need help with aquarium photography

Post by bluwtr » Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:32 pm

Hey Tim, as far as using the plate, the easiest way is to tape it to something that you can use to lower it into the tank then have soemone hold it for you. Once you set the custom WB it will always be there. Most cameras allow for multiple custom set ups, so you can set the WB for different lightings.

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