Smite's 100 gallon
- Thread starter Smite
- Start date
Sounds like you got the camera, just get a viewer for top shots and play around with it.
Here's my base setting that works for t5
Set your Kelvin as high as possible (higher the number the better for blue shots. Mine let's me go up to 9900k. This tells the camera a blueish white is actual white and helps correct the photo and reduce blue.)
Set you exposure (usual a "+/-" symbol) low, in the negatives. Midday t5 shots mine is usually at -0.7.
Turn off auto select focus - where the camera choses what to focus. This keeps the focus centered in the view finder making it easier to lock in on the subject.
Turn flow off a few minutes before shooting, gets debris out of the shot
Download canons editing software. It'll be free on their site. There will be a graph under editing that has RBG ( Red, blue, green) in the drop down menu. Select B for blue. Click the line and pull it down in the middle slightly to reduce blue. I do this until the picture doesn't look super blue but reds and greens don't look over powering. A trick is to ask yourself if the water looks super cold to the touch, if it does you're still too blue.
Contrast increase to 5 out of 100 gives some shadows a d depth. Helps draw attention to the coral....and away from my bubble algae.
Sometimes bump up the sharpness on macro shots.
That was meant to be shorter but it took me awhile to figure those settings out, so maybe it'll save someone frustrations. I shoot on a nikon but I'm sure everything is similar for a Canon.
Here's my base setting that works for t5
Set your Kelvin as high as possible (higher the number the better for blue shots. Mine let's me go up to 9900k. This tells the camera a blueish white is actual white and helps correct the photo and reduce blue.)
Set you exposure (usual a "+/-" symbol) low, in the negatives. Midday t5 shots mine is usually at -0.7.
Turn off auto select focus - where the camera choses what to focus. This keeps the focus centered in the view finder making it easier to lock in on the subject.
Turn flow off a few minutes before shooting, gets debris out of the shot
Download canons editing software. It'll be free on their site. There will be a graph under editing that has RBG ( Red, blue, green) in the drop down menu. Select B for blue. Click the line and pull it down in the middle slightly to reduce blue. I do this until the picture doesn't look super blue but reds and greens don't look over powering. A trick is to ask yourself if the water looks super cold to the touch, if it does you're still too blue.
Contrast increase to 5 out of 100 gives some shadows a d depth. Helps draw attention to the coral....and away from my bubble algae.
Sometimes bump up the sharpness on macro shots.
That was meant to be shorter but it took me awhile to figure those settings out, so maybe it'll save someone frustrations. I shoot on a nikon but I'm sure everything is similar for a Canon.
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No. I don't mess with my ISO that much because I don't understand it that well. I know it has to do with shutter speed and ambient light.
In your camera press the menu button, scroll down to white balance. In white balance you should see something like "choose color temperature" or "choose kelvin" possibly just a "K". That's where you'll select 10,000k. The higher the kelvin the bluer the light. When you hear people say they have a 20k look or see 20k radiums they are referring to the color temperature or "kelvin (k)" of the bulb. If you have a bluer looking tank and you set your camera to 10k you will still need to pull blue out of the picture in editing.
You can also do custom white balance. My results have been hit or miss, it sometime removes too much blue from the photo for me. You camera has white balance correction too. It looks like you can take a picture, view it and remove the overly blue look on the graph that displays. Pretty cool.
In your camera press the menu button, scroll down to white balance. In white balance you should see something like "choose color temperature" or "choose kelvin" possibly just a "K". That's where you'll select 10,000k. The higher the kelvin the bluer the light. When you hear people say they have a 20k look or see 20k radiums they are referring to the color temperature or "kelvin (k)" of the bulb. If you have a bluer looking tank and you set your camera to 10k you will still need to pull blue out of the picture in editing.
You can also do custom white balance. My results have been hit or miss, it sometime removes too much blue from the photo for me. You camera has white balance correction too. It looks like you can take a picture, view it and remove the overly blue look on the graph that displays. Pretty cool.
Thanks man. These fish are really starting to develop nicely, really happy with the group I've got going.
Yeah super happy about that. He still isn't eating out of the water column but he holds his own and is finding enough in the rock work. Now that I'm back in town for a bit I'll be trying to get him eating prepared foods. Fingers crossed!
Yeah super happy about that. He still isn't eating out of the water column but he holds his own and is finding enough in the rock work. Now that I'm back in town for a bit I'll be trying to get him eating prepared foods. Fingers crossed!
