improving pics of full tank w/halides on

[Gary Majchrzak]

I take somewhat fair pics of aquarium fishes and corals, but my full tank shots leave something to be desired. I'm somewhat hampered by equipment (stock Canon A510) and the fact that my aquarium is an 'island', so you can often see right through to the other room unless I use a background behind it- but this still does not eliminate light bounce/reflections inside the aquarium itself! To make matters worse (for photography purposes), I have windows and a skylight around my aquarium- making it necessary to wait until the sun sets to take any pictures.
My main concern is the overexposure I get on corals at the top of the rockwork nearest the halides. Any suggestions to help me out here would be GREATLY appreciated. TIA. -Gary

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/gary334/IMG_0641maybe.jpg

BTW- I'll be back online tonight. No internet during the day for me.
The setting I use on my camera is autofocus/no flash and (sometimes) macro mode. I steady the camera with a tripod or lean it against a wall.

[jwedehase]

Your problem is the same one we all fight. Direct harsh light. There's simply too much MORE light on top than there is in the shadows. Metal halides are such an intense light source, and all the light is coming from a single small source. When I had PCs, there was a solid 36x12" grid of light, rather than two pinpoints of MH light, like I have now. In this progression below, you can see how even the lighting was with PC, then how harsh with just MH. The last photo is the most recent, and I've added PC supplementation to fill in the shadows a little. Another reason for the supplementation was that I could see exactly where my corals were getting light. Each coral branch had a hard line of color to brown, exactly where the shadow hit. They looked almost like they were painted brown on the bottom, it was so odd.

Here's my tank, with 384w PC:

http://www.cvreefers.org/d/8030-3/fulltank032605.jpg

300w MH:

http://www.cvreefers.org/d/17864-1/full_tank_100505.jpg

And 300w MH with 96w PC supplementation:

http://www.cvreefers.org/d/22969-1/fulltank_020506.jpg

[Reefjunkee]

sweet looking tank

[gpodio]

I often use a flash to help even out the lighting, however in general I underexpose all tank shots, can't do much with overexposed areas where as you can bring out the shadows rather easily in photoshop, even basic use of levels can do a lot for an underexposed photo. At times I also use a fluorescent fixture placed on the floor pointing up to the tank. I also tend to shoot from below eye-level of the tank to reduce reflections. I have the same problems with window placement and have to shoot at night with all lights off in the room.

I would try more of a frontal shot with a black backdrop behind it. You can easily duck below the line of your own reflection. A very dim flash can help give more detail in the shadowed areas, if your flash can't be turned down try placing some tissue paper in front of it. Looking at your photo I would certainly drop the exposure.

This is probably the better shot I've gotten from my reef tank, it's a 40g with 400W MH:

http://gpodio.smugmug.com/photos/50562396-L.jpg

Hope that helps

[clippo]

if you shoot RAW, you could adjust exposure giving one 'dark' image (good highlight detail) and one 'light' image (good shadow detail - or take the shot with exposure bracketing. If you have Photoshop, all you then need to do is drop one image onto the other, create a layer mask and then paint out the required parts of the image using a low flow brush. This should give you the highs and lows of the image - works well with individual sps shots too as these are often subject to same problem.

Works on substrate too (which I see people also have a problem with). Here's a shot of my 30gal - its lit with PCs, but the xenia causes a massive problem with overexposure. Its still overexposed in the shot, but its far better than the original - using the technique above (thanks APF!).

http://i.pbase.com/o4/35/576935/1/46182236.DPP_1478.JPG

[Gary Majchrzak]

Great suggestions- thanks, I appreciate all of them a lot. I'm bringing the level of flash down and using a black backdrop in this one (essentially a dark room).
I've been playing with the aperture setting and hoping for the best. I don't have photoshop to help me.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/gary334/IMG_0943maybe3.jpg

[Cutiewitbooty]

wow awesome tanks every one!! All thoes pics a better than i can do, so i think they are good :d You guys are just to picky, j/k

[Gary Majchrzak]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6800478#post6800478 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Cutiewitbooty
wow awesome tanks every one!! All thoes pics a better than i can do, so i think they are good :d You guys are just to picky, j/k
taking a good photo requires being picky, Cutie. ;)

[gpodio]

Gary that's a nice shot there, I think with a little PS or similar you can bring out a lot more.... if you like send me a larger file and we can see what some basic PS tools can do, I'm not an expert with PS myself, others would likely be able to do a lot more with it than myself.

Another suggestion would be to delete the glare from the light fixture above. I also like the crop far better than the original, I feel that angled tank shots look better if showing the side of the tank as well rather than a crop of the from pane only...

BTW, I often use Paint Shop Pro because for a long time I didn't want to dish out the money for PS, it's actually quite a good little app for under $100 (pricing may be different now, it's been a while) and it's a little easier to master than PS... worth a consideration if you do wish to get into some editing on the PC. I'm sure someone may know of good freeware software too that could help...

Keep taking shots with different settings and ideas to illuminate the shadowed areas... a slightly stronger flash may have given you better shadow detail. I often take several shots with minor changes in settings between them. Perhaps a little more exposure?? Just trying to get a better pic prior to any computer editing seeing you don't do that yourself.

Have fun with it

[Gary Majchrzak]

Giancarlo- thanks for the advice and words of encouragement. I'll especially try to remember to have fun with it! :)

[Frisco]

Another alternative might be a graduated neutral density filter

[Gary Majchrzak]

You lost me on that one, Eli.
I'm still trying to figure out the relationship between exposure compensation and aperture settings! :p

[Frisco]

A neutral density filter is just a semi transparent glass filter that goes in front of the lens, and they are used a bit in landscape photography. You can get them that are either uniform transparency or some that have a transition across the filter, in which one side is dark and the other is light with a transition in between. So it would effectively just block some of the light towards the top of the picture frame and allow more light to pass towards the bottom of the picture frame. It wouldn't be a perfect solution (and I can't say that I know how good or bad it would actually work or how dark you would need it to be), but it might be something to check out.

[Gary Majchrzak]

Thanks for explaining. :)

[Gary Majchrzak]

After several hours (actually days!) of playing with exposure compensation and other settings (manually) I've managed to come up with (what I feel) is a better photo. Opinions?
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/gary334/IMG_1042maybe222.jpg

[mr.bear]

thats some jaw dropping stuff

[Flipturn88]

Simply gorgeous! I have always loved your tank. My only (selfish) complaint is the size of the pic; a bit bigger would be fabulous. :)

[Gary Majchrzak]

thanks for kind words, folks. :)
I need to settle on some pics. Since my aquarium is viewable on all 4 sides, it can be a challenge.

living room side
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/gary334/IMG_1042maybe900.jpg

kitchen side
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/gary334/IMG_1407save900.jpg

[Gary Majchrzak]

I'll get some resized pics up so you don't have to squint... :hmm5:

[Gary Majchrzak]

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/gary334/IMG_1437save490.jpg
kitchen side

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/gary334/IMG_1042maybe90090.jpg
living room side

[gpodio]

Wow! Just take a look at the difference between these and the first one... owesome!

[Flipturn88]

Even better, thanks. :) I can't decide which side I like better! Both are beautiful.

[Gary Majchrzak]

Thanks to everyone that offered their help and suggestions.
I still have a lot to learn about taking great aquarium pictures.

[AngelReefer]

nice tanks everyone

[Jay Luto]

Gian,

Good recommendations.

[gpodio]

Jay! What are you doing here? You are not about to pass over to the dark side are you??

Good to see you on RC!

[DMK]

nice improvement. i heard u can place a piece of scotch tape over lense too. i know it sounds getto, but does it work?

[mako56]

Hey Gary, What did you use for settings?

[jdieck]

Something that also seem to help is the use of a polarizing filter, it takes away a lot of the reflections,

[Gary Majchrzak]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6876207#post6876207 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mako56
Hey Gary, What did you use for settings?
I took so many pictures that I'm not really sure of the settings used on those last few pics.
I used a cheapo tripod. (Boy I need to replace that sucker!)
I can tell you that my f stop was between 4.5 and 5.
Shutter speed was 1/30 to help minimize "fish blur" (but I got some anyways. Dang that Convict!)
Some exposure compensation was used, too.
I took a lot of pictures and sorted through them. I can't tell you how many hours of bad TV programming I missed. :)

[Gary Majchrzak]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6876381#post6876381 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jdieck
Something that also seem to help is the use of a polarizing filter, it takes away a lot of the reflections,
Thanks for reminding me. I used to have a polarization filter but I sold it along with my old 35mm gear. :(

[jdieck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6877957#post6877957 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gary Majchrzak
Thanks for reminding me. I used to have a polarization filter but I sold it along with my old 35mm gear. :(
Sorry, don't shoot the messanger :D

[gpodio]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6875598#post6875598 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DMK
nice improvement. i heard u can place a piece of scotch tape over lense too. i know it sounds getto, but does it work?

Could you be referring to using scotch tape over the flash to diffuse it?

I'm too anal with my lenses to give it a try, I freak out at the first sight of a finger print on the protective filter ;)

[Frisco]

In the new Photoshop CS2, there is a feature for creating HDR (high dynamic range) images, which should address this problem. You take a series of RAW or TIFF pics of the same image with the range of different exposures required to get everything in the image exposed properly and then combine them together in PS into one of these HDR images. I haven't tried it, but it sounds easy enough to do and would fix this issue.