If you own a dSLR (or even a P&S), I hope you find some of this information usefull for improving your aquarium shots.

Shoot RAW
RAW formats, imo, are much more forgiving than shooting JPEG. In RAW you can adjust white balance, exposure comp., etc., as long as you have a nice piece of software. I use Nikon's Capture NX (for Nikon dSLRs), but I believe adobe has a decent raw editor as well as apple's Aperture, but I have used neither.

Basic understanding of ISO
ISO is the sensitivity of your camera's sensor. The higher the number, the more sensitive the sensor is to light. In other words, ISO 800 is more sensitve than ISO 100 and at ISO 800, you'll have a faster shutter speed than at ISO 100. There is a trade off of course and that is NOISE. The higher your ISO setting, the more "grainy" your images will become. My advice for ISO is to use the lowest setting you feel you can get away with.

Remember your WIFE
Before you start shooting, try and remember your WIFE (sorry ladies, I don't know of a good one for HUSBAND). White balance, ISO, F-stop (aperture), and Exposure. It's a good idea to check all these settings prior to snapping off a series of shots only to find out you just photographed a waterfall at ISO 3200 and f1.8... :)

Step away from the auto button
Try aperture priority or shutter priority before manual but do move away from setting the camera to auto and firing away. A few helpful tips here... if you're in shutter priority, going below 1/60 is going to cause problems and for f-stop, most lenses sharpen up nicely around f8-11, much beyond that, and you'll need flash to compensate for the lack of light your lens is letting in.

Exposure
This is one that most people don't think about. With out some direction, your camera really doesn't know what it's taking a picture of. I sees a black and white and grey square, and it thinks its job is to get the best blend of all the different greys it sees.

As an example, in our tanks we usually have very bright sand (white) and very dark rock. If you're trying to expose a fish on a rock surrounded by white sand and the camera is set to meter the whole image, you're probably going to be disappointed w/ the results because the camera is trying get the right exposure on everything in the picture (not possible). You probably don't care if the sand is blown (too bright, loss of detail) because you're interested in the fish. If the fish is dark like the rock, you have a few options to get the right exposure.

1. you can adjust the metering mode of the camera, change it to partial metering or spot metering so that the camera isn't trying to get a proper exposure on that bright sand.

2. you can adjust the exposure compensation. Because the sand is so reflective of light, it is "tricking" the camera into thinking there is more light available than there actually is, so the camera is using a faster shutter speed than the one you want and that's why the rock and fish are turning out so dark. By forcing the camera to over-expose a bit, you're decreasing the shutter speed just a bit and allowing more light onto the camera's sensor.

Practice
Take lots of pictures and see what works for you. This is the best advice I can give, the above is what I have learned in shooting aquariums over the past couple of years. Take it with a grain of salt and test it out yourself.

In the mean time, sharing your pictures at places like...

www.dpreview.com (http://www.dpreview.com)

will help you hone your skills...

good luck!

Matt

You can get hands-on training from James Wiseman this weekend at SaltwtaerU!

kevin steals matt's thunder, details at 8... :)

if you're going to swaterU, Wiseman knows a heck of a lot more than me... :)

kevin steals matt's thunder, details at 8... :)

if you're going to swaterU, Wiseman knows a heck of a lot more than me... :)


Not trying to steal your thunder.

Not trying to steal your thunder.

don't sweat it, kevin, I'm joking around as usual. I wish i was in town for SaltwaterU, i'd love to hear James' presentation! :)

Can you add this to the wiki?

Can you add this to the wiki?

Chris, I sure can. I was hoping some people would have some tips/suggestions of their own to add as well. I need to work on adding some more stuff to it as well.

Is there a particular section in the wiki you would like it to go? Just in the "articles" section?

thanks,

Matt

Hmm- I'd say just link it somewhere off the home page; we can always move it later.

I can't wait to get a better camera. I thinking my photography skills are far beyond what my cheap 3mp point and shoot camera can handle.

Great Info Matt!!

I will add that as well as practicing and getting the settings correct for your camera, you should also prep your tank for the picture as well.

Clean The Glass

Nothing like capturing a 1 in 1000 shot and then realizing it's blurred by a green haze on the glass! ARGGG!!

Turn off pumps and power heads

Many times trying to take pics with PH's and pumps on will cause a lot of bubbles and stray objects in your pics. Also as the tank and sediments settle down your tank should be nice and clear. (If you cleaned the glass! :D)

Also if you are trying for some neat macro pictures even the slightest movement from a coral can cause a blurry shot depending on your camera settings.

Feed or Not to Feed?

Simple answer yes and no! LOL!

If I am going to take fish pics, I do not feed. They get excited and stay in front of the camera more when hungry thinking there next meal may be coming from that cool little black object.

If I am wanting to shot coral I may feed the fish good a while before the photo shoot. While they will still aggravate you, it may not be as bad.

USE A TRIPOD!!!

Using a tripod will make life so much eaiser and your pictures nice and crisp. Not only this, if you are trying to find just the right settings, you can set a spot and try them all on the exact same object.

USE TIMER MODE

I like to get my shot set up and then set the timer! Using the timer on the camera will insure there is no movement whatsoever.

I actually purchased a remote switch that will allow you to activate the camera timer, or click the shutter with the press of a button. This works really well.

PRACTICE

And as Matt said, practice, practice, practice!! Out of 100 pictures I may get 10-20 that I want to share. So if I am going to take the time to do all this prepping and preparing, I am going to shoot loads of photographs! Oh the beauty of digi cams and memory cards! :D

POST PROCESSING

There are many free and paid programs that offer a wide variety of tools that will help finish off a great picture, from adjusting your RAW files and color to just the right masterpiece, to using clone tools to remove stray material floating around in the water column. A good post processing program is something to really consider.

Paid program example: Photoshop http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/
Free program example: Gimp http://www.gimp.org/

Well that's it for me right now besides a few of my pics where I used these tips.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y232/revhtree/angel.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y232/revhtree/ricmacro.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y232/revhtree/caribblues.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y232/revhtree/catseyes.jpg

Very nice pictures, revhtree!

Great post Matt... Great pics revhtree... Wish I had something to add, but my skills are far from that yet. I will definately keep an eye on this thread for more to come though.


Big D

While my digital photography skills are somewhat lacking due to little practice with modern cameras, I'll share my thoughts from film photography that should still apply:

To add to Matt's "Understanding of ISO":

Understand f-Stop's affect on Depth of Field
A lower f-stop means more light, higher means less. However, f-stop along with subject distance affects depth of field (the distance between the closest in-focus subject and the furthest in-focus subject). Higher f-stop numbers mean greater depth of field. At close ranges, the depth of field can be quite small (less than 1/4"), so widening out the aperture too far can create pictures that have a depth of field shorter than the subject which might not be what you want. Then again, depth of field can be used to isolate a subject from a busy background for stunning effect.

These two techniques apply well to hand-held SLR photography. If you don't have a tripod, anything less than 1/180th - 1/250th of a second can induce image jitter, depending on your subject's movement. This is especially useful for fish shots since those pesky fish don't always want to stay in front of the tripod.

Brace your camera with yourself
You can bring your left hand close in like you'd do if you were going to rest your chin on the heel of your palm. Bring your upper left arm as close to your body as possible and use your palm as a camera rest. It's a similar technique to the way to shoot a rifle in match competition. It should be a firm, but not tense position.

Exhale
Take a normal breath and let it out (don't breathe deep and don't force past a normal exhale as this will change your heart rate). You'd be suprised how much a heartbeat at the wrong moment will affect a shot (film or bullet). Don't hold your breath past the comfort point either. Breath again and repeat.

Also, two habits from the film SLR days that digital camera enthusiasts can forget quite often because of the instant results and faith in digital editing:

Bracket your exposures
Bracketing is the practice of snapping a few shots exposed a bit more and a bit less than your meter reading. On film, this changed contrast and saturation of the final prints. Even with digital photos, however, the colors will never look more realistic and vibrant than when you get the image right on the source material. In the old days, the aperture ring was on the lens, so it was a simple matter of turn, shoot, turn, shoot, etc. On DSLR's, I assume this is dependent on camera controls and I'm not sure how easy this is. An added benefit is that on the higher contrast shots (under-exposed), you'll have a higher depth of field as well.

Vary the Shots on a Subject
Believe it or not, this is different than bracketing. Take tons of pictures of the same subject with different exposure and aperture/depth-of-field options. I think most cameras store the exposure information for shots as well, these days. In the film years, it was pen and paper.

George thanks!

Keep them coming folks. I'm out of town for a while and won't have consistent internet access, but when I get back, we'll compile everything together into a nice article...

Rev,

You need to make a profile for centropyge potteri (sp?) and use that picture, great stuff!

Revhtree, those photos are absolutely, incredibly (IN-CON-ceive-able!) beautiful! Just wow!

Thanks Matt, Rev, and George! I need serious help with my photography. I have a decent camera and lens but I just seem to take junk. :( I will try some this weekend. :) I almost always use a tripod and use the timer to trigger the shutter. I always try and clean the glass before. However I always leave the pumps running (just chicken that they might not come back on if I shut them off due to Ca buildup. hehe) Also I just leave the camera in Auto or make a sad attempt at bracketing in full manual mode with only so so results. I dont shoot in RAW because I havent ever learned the photo editing software. I will try some of your excellent suggestions. :) Thanks again. :)

Do be aware that taking pictures like rehtree posted will require a macro lens. My guess is that he's using either a 100mm or 180mm macro for the ricordia and zoo pictures. You just can't get that kind of focusing with a non-macro lens...

Do be aware that taking pictures like rehtree posted will require a macro lens. My guess is that he's using either a 100mm or 180mm macro for the ricordia and zoo pictures. You just can't get that kind of focusing with a non-macro lens...

Good point Chris! The fish picture was taken with a kit lens 18-55mm Canon. The Coral pics were taken with the Canon 100mm 2.8 lens.

Love that lens.

The only thing I will add is that a good option instead of using the timer function on the camera when your shooting corals I've found i very useful to have a remote release (Like this http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=5652&A=details&Q=&sku=439328&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation) so you don't touch the camera and shake it.

One other thing is that if your using a tripod you should turn any image stablization off and also use the mirror lockup function.

Hello folks,

I created and edited (very slightly) a page on the wiki for this, please take a peak at the discussion forum and provide feedback, comments, etc...

gracias,

Matt

Here's the link (http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4506)

Cool bro!!