[zhenya]

I was doing a water change yesterday and decided to remove some of the Pocillopora growing on my return line...and it just happens that I was getting real low on some dry food. So, off I went to the LFS to do some exchanging.
I figured since I'll be in there I'll bring my camera with me but I forgot to look closely which lens I had on it.., and as luck would have it, I had the wrong lens on it( Canon;s 85mm f1.8). It is a great lens but not for aquarium phography per se. My only save was that I brought my external flash with me and it allowed me to compensate somewhat for the lack of lighting in general in the store.

Anyway, on to the pictures of fish and some corals...I didn;t take many shots of the corals but a few so don't raise your hopes up too much.

Fishes first.

A really large, 8-10 inches Pomachanthus imperator. The big fella was clean and fat looking and I wished for a moment that I had a 4 or 5 hundred gallon aquarium. He was just spectacular looking.


and some other random shots of the angelfishes.

[zhenya]

Few more of the angelfish.




and a side view of the gorgeous fish...


There were quite a few tangs there as well but I only took few shots of them.

First the really large naso, it had to be 7-8 inches at the least. Pardon the writings on the glass but this sort of things can;t be helped.


This powder brown tang looked clean to my eye but the cleaner wrass was all over him for some reason. Tang didn;t seem to mind...

[zhenya]

And here are some triggerfish I saw. I mean I saw more than that but I couldn't take any shots of some of them due to either space limitations( read wrong lens ) or due to really dirty and scratched glass. But I digress...

This fella was only about 2 inches in length but he was all by his lonesome, I guess his temperment required it...


and a Niger trigger.


And check out a kisser on this guy...


OK, I guess that is it for the fish pictures. Are you tired yet? want to see some more pictures? Ok, on to few more images.

[zhenya]

Couple of shots of corals and such.

This shrooms were the size of dinner plates...


And this galaxea coral had it;s sweepers going some 6-8 inches long.



and some misceleneous stuff...









Again, my apologies for the quality but I hope that you enjoyed them still.

[wozza]

as allways great shots.
Gene can i ask what camera and lens you used for your macro shots of the SPS in the "close ups" thread?

cheers james

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by wozza

as allways great shots.
Gene can i ask what camera and lens you used for your macro shots of the SPS in the "close ups" thread?

cheers james

Thanks James!

The camera ( and I only have one ) is 350D also known as Digital Rebel XT and the lens was Canon EF-S 60mm f2.8 macro. I will post few more when I get back home in a while. Right now I got to go get my granddaughter from school...

[wozza]

The camera ( and I only have one ) is 350D also known as Digital Rebel XT

cool im hopefully getting that camera 2marow!!
will be another couple of months untill i can get another lens though!

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by wozza

cool im hopefully getting that camera 2marow!!
will be another couple of months untill i can get another lens though!

Good luck with your new camera, James! Don't forget to post your shots when you do get it. Are you getting it with the kit lens(18-55)? If so, sometime you get lucky and get a decent copy of it, so don't worry if you get it. It performs pretty good outside in the bright light, and when I had my copy it did decent job indoors as well. You just need to stop it down some and practice with it.

[wozza]

yeah im gettin the 18-55 lens, ive heard that it can be a of a let down.

[CSeaSee]

Gene-
You set the bar so high for yourself that I don't think many of us could tell the difference between that lens and whatever other lens you use. Fantastic photos!
10 years ago posting this sort of thing wasn't possible at all...!

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by CSeaSee

Gene-
You set the bar so high for yourself that I don't think many of us could tell the difference between that lens and whatever other lens you use. Fantastic photos!
10 years ago posting this sort of thing wasn't possible at all...!

Thanks Carl!

The lens in question is a fantastic lens...for portraits... It has huge aperture but DOF will be none existent if you shoot wide open. Works great for portraits as you don;t really need a whole lot of DOF, but it was tough compensating with speed for lack of light.

Anyways, I agree with your last statement...in fact 10 years ago I had p&s film camera (Olympus) and thought I had a fantastic equipment...

[zhenya]

Here's one more photo I forgot to add...this little guy was isolated in a small cubicle of a tank due to someone tearing his tail to shreds. I didn't bother to ask who done it, though...

[Poseidon]

It looks like you had fun Gene! By chance did you have your WB set for something else other then "auto", or did the LFS just have REALLY blue lighting?

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

It looks like you had fun Gene! By chance did you have your WB set for something else other then "auto", or did the LFS just have REALLY blue lighting?

Mike, I would've had much more fun with my 60mm macro lens. Anyway, regarding the blue cast, the lighting is so dim on those tanks with bbright blue back glass that everything gets that blue hue. I was shoting in custom wb set for my tank and didn't bother to check what it was set at. I chuck that as inexperience on my part... I could've work on it more in PS and remove the cast but I was too lazy, to my shame...

That 85mm lens has really long minimum focus distance and that makes it not really suitable in tight spaces like the LFS's rows of small holding tanks. I probably would've done better if I had my 17-40 L on, even at f4.