Febuary Meeting ...its a doozy!
- Thread starter dv3
- Start date
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I've only had my camera a couple of weeks but I've been messing with the white balance to try and get the right color under the blues. White balance is the key to blue actinic lighting pics! I was surprised to see my camera doesn't let you really customize white balance though. It just takes your last picture of an example so I have to use a white sheet of paper and take a picture under the blue lights and do that 3-4 times to get even remotely close. Kinda irritating considering how much I spent...
[attachment=60900:name]
[attachment=60900:name]
Also, to get in on the hot DBTC action lately, I was thinking of bringing 2 corals... I have a 4 head piece of hammer coral and a nice colony of orangy pinkish plays. Problem is I don't really know how to or feel comfortable fragging these!! If I brought the corals, could someone bring the fragging equipment? And then anyone that wanted some could bring their own containers to take home! Also, Mini-T, is there an area that could facilitate this?
Here are pics of the corals:
Here are pics of the corals:
This is exactly what most people run into. Most point and shoots don't correct for the white balance properly under the blue actinic lighting...mainly because the photo-sensors in the camera aren't picking up "white light" under the actinic bulbs. The Kelvin temp of most reef tanks is going to be outside of the "expected range" of those cameras. You can correct the hue/saturation post-exposure with photoshop...but even then you are limited unless your point-and-shoot takes pictures in RAW format.
If you have a DSLR that allows custom temperature setting, then it just takes a few minutes of fiddling with the settings to get things dialed in.
I'm sure there are others here that have more experience with photography...especially when shooting reefs, but I'd be willing to help out with some pointers if anybody has some burning questions on how to set up their DSLR's white balance for tank photography. Let me know and I'll be more than willing to do so at the meeting if the host/mods are cool with that. I can also bring my camera, tripod, and remote flash (nikon mount) for anybody that wants to just play around a bit. FWIW...a flash placed off camera can really help level out the blue hues too, but it does add another variable to setting your white balance correctly, and of course it's only a convenient solution if you have a DSLR.
If you have a DSLR that allows custom temperature setting, then it just takes a few minutes of fiddling with the settings to get things dialed in.
I'm sure there are others here that have more experience with photography...especially when shooting reefs, but I'd be willing to help out with some pointers if anybody has some burning questions on how to set up their DSLR's white balance for tank photography. Let me know and I'll be more than willing to do so at the meeting if the host/mods are cool with that. I can also bring my camera, tripod, and remote flash (nikon mount) for anybody that wants to just play around a bit. FWIW...a flash placed off camera can really help level out the blue hues too, but it does add another variable to setting your white balance correctly, and of course it's only a convenient solution if you have a DSLR.
To be honest...I find that to be much easier as well. The only reason I've been messing with my camera settings for white balance is that my computer is down...which means no photoshop right now. Since most of my uploads are done at work, I need to have the photos exposed properly so that I can have pleasing images without any processing down the line. PITA.
RAW mode does make everything infinitely easier though.
RAW mode does make everything infinitely easier though.
Hurrafreak- yeah it's a branching, I know there are 4 separated heads for sure, but there might be more heads really close to the main 4. So I'll say 4 frags of that if we get the go ahead from Mini-t
About the photos- I don't have the full expensive photoshop, just the $99 version ( I forget what it's called) and to be honest I haven't opened it in quite a few months... But I'll bring my camera for sure and maybe this and the frag workshop will be the topics for the meeting?
About the photos- I don't have the full expensive photoshop, just the $99 version ( I forget what it's called) and to be honest I haven't opened it in quite a few months... But I'll bring my camera for sure and maybe this and the frag workshop will be the topics for the meeting?
No, I use adobe lightroom:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/