Need a bit of help please

[Future]

I'm ripping my hair out here trying to figure out these macro settings and proper lighting and such. I'm getting better at the macro zooming, but shutter speed, and those other things are new to me. What is a good setting to try aiming for?

When actually getting good pic's to show color, how do you get it so they aren't "BLUE"?

Just took a shot of my new acro under actinics and it's blue in the picture whereas it's emerald green in reality...

So, umm, what am I doing wrong?

[Nemo Keeper]

Hey future, I'm not a photographer or anything like that. I just basicallt leave on the tank lights, turn off all other surrounding lights in the house and take the pic with no flash. This seems to work for me. Here are some sample pics.

http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/v...per928/012.jpg

http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/v...r928/007-1.jpg

http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/v...per928/006.jpg

[gregr]

Taking pictures under actinic lights only is always going to result in a wierd/blue color cast unless you do some fancy footwork in Photoshop, and even then it's really hard to get rid of all the blue. The reason is the blue light is waaaaaaayy beyond what cameras are designed to handle. Even 20K metal halides push the limits.
As for settings- what camera do you have? The settings kinda depend on what kind of camera you have. It also depends on what kind of shot you're taking. For shots of corals that aren't moving your best results will be made using a tripod.
Nice coral by the way

[Future]

Got the tripod, cam is a fuji s2000hd.

Playing with 8 different imaging proggys now...trying to stay away from that long arse cs4 install again..ha ha

[gregr]

I just upgraded to CS4 last week. Been using CS2 for a long time. They made some huge improvements... shoulda upgraded sooner.
Anyhow- to get a shot of that new coral I'd use aperture priority and set the aperture to a fairly high f-number (like f8 or so) to get a lot of depth of field. Use a low iso like 100 to avoid noisy/grainy shots. If you shoot under metal halide lights the camera should do ok in auto white balance- at least it will get you close enough that a small amount of adjusting on the computer should make it right. Check the shutter speed that the camera selects and if it's slower than about 1/20 you will get sharper results by using the self-timer (2 second delay). Obviously the camera should be in macro mode. Try to get the camera right close to the glass (but no closer than 10cm to the subject), make sure there's no algae on the glass and keep the camera aimed squarely into the tank.
Oh yeah- you might want to do that CS4 install because now you can make color temp adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw on jpegs.

[Future]

yea had it installed and i ended up rolling the pc back, so I need to reinstall. Never got to play with it either which bites.

gunna do the install just before I hit the sack

[TimH07]

photoshop fun!

im in the back with my kid, thats my bro and his up close



lol

[Future]

I like the first one w/ the spinner. I actually had to take a second look...ha ha

[TimH07]

thats a great white jumping out to eat a seal lol

donor pic



edit, ok not a seal, just noticed the line

[Future]

ahh ok, looked like a spinner in the other pic

[TimH07]

thats my favorite photoshop work of mine yet

just looks too real

[TimH07]

not to derail your thread, i just made one with pics as well, i dont have a macro lens, but i have a nikon D40 and i took them with 8F, 800 iso, 125 ss

i hear you should always be over the mm setting of your lens on shutter speed ie 55mm means shoot 60 shutter speed or up

[Future]

I'm fairly camera stupid, so I'll learn..going to check your out now.

Here's my fiddling in CS4...