Aperture, Shutter, and ISO beginner settings for FTS

[Miami Reef]

I’m SO new to this manual camera world. Kind of overwhelming to be honest.

Can someone give me a basic guideline of the aperture, ISO, and shutter settings to take a FTS? I literally cannot play with it to get anywhere near the results I’m looking for.

Thanks lol. I think with practice I can get there, but I definitely need some help as a beginner.

 

[danieyella]

I'm still in the researching a camera phase, but going to tag along here to see what tips you get cause I know I'll need them too!

 

[Bladezz]

I’m SO new to this manual camera world. Kind of overwhelming to be honest.

Can someone give me a basic guideline of the aperture, ISO, and shutter settings to take a FTS? I literally cannot play with it to get anywhere near the results I’m looking for.

Thanks lol. I think with practice I can get there, but I definitely need some help as a beginner.

Your question is like asking if you should set up a freshwater, saltwater or a reef tank. LOL!

Sooo many variables.

Your subject is a "Full Tank Shot" - is that right?
How big is your tank
How long
What angle of shot are you trying to get
Are your lights in a canopy or exposed

What camera body are you using
What lens are you using
What lighting are you taking pictures in
Is the camera on a tripod or hand held

Will you be shooting raw or jpeg images?
Do you have photoshop or some post editing software


If you are new to photography I would suggest putting your camera in manual mode and play with those settings. There are pros and cons to all 3 settings and everyone has there own opinions on how to do it.

I love photography and combining these two hobbies is a ton of fun but it takes a lot of practice and research to get "good".

 

[Miami Reef]

Your question is like asking if you should set up a freshwater, saltwater or a reef tank. LOL!

Sooo many variables.

Your subject is a "Full Tank Shot" - is that right?
How big is your tank
How long
What angle of shot are you trying to get
Are your lights in a canopy or exposed

What camera body are you using
What lens are you using
What lighting are you taking pictures in
Is the camera on a tripod or hand held

Will you be shooting raw or jpeg images?
Do you have photoshop or some post editing software


If you are new to photography I would suggest putting your camera in manual mode and play with those settings. There are pros and cons to all 3 settings and everyone has there own opinions on how to do it.

I love photography and combining these two hobbies is a ton of fun but it takes a lot of practice and research to get "good".

Oof! Ok. Gotcha!

I will keep playing with the camera in that case lol.

 

[exnisstech]

Don't forget white balance. Iso aperture and shutter speed will be used for exposure or/ and depth of field
You are probably going to need a white / grey card and have to set up a custom white balance under your tank lights to get the correct colors.

 

[Miami Reef]

Don't forget white balance. Iso aperture and shutter speed will be used for exposure or/ and depth of field
You are probably going to need a white / grey card and have to set up a custom white balance under your tank lights to get the correct colors.

I was planning to use editing with adobe to fix the white balance.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Been watching some videos on YouTube . Tidal Gardens does pretty amazing job .

 

[Bladezz]

I was planning to use editing with adobe to fix the white balance.

Shoot in raw mode for the most options with editing.

 

[Bladezz]

Oof! Ok. Gotcha!

I will keep playing with the camera in that case lol.

Some generic rules of thumb that I use:
> Higher ISO means you need less light and maybe you can use faster shutter speeds but you get grainy pictures the higher you go. Faster shutter speeds mean less motion blur.
> Lower ISO means you need more light and typically you need a slower shutter speed but you get less grainy pictures. Motion blur becomes a problem the slower the shutter speed.
> Aperture depends on the lens but I like to keep it wide open and adjust the other two settings. This could affect your depth of field.

PS I just watched the video above. It does an excellent job of describing these points.

 

[aSaltyKlown]

I generally set my WB to 10,000k or close to. This will generally eliminate the need to use a filter.
If you want to stop the motion of your fish, I'd start with a shutter of at least 1/125 and an aperture of 5.6, and ISO at 400-800 (as high as 1600 or even 3200, depending on your camera) this should be a good starting point. f5.6 or f4 should be good for DOF. I'd adjust ISO if exposure is too low in these settings.

Play around with the settings, a tripod will also help if you need to get the shutte speed dwon.

This was taken on a Note 8 @ 10k WB and shows basically how I see it in person.

 

[maroun.c]

Checkout the sticky threads on the top of the photography forum for a series of articles that I believe might help. Here's the link to the 1st one

Your Guide to Aquarium Photography #1 - Getting the Basics

Tank photography has been and continues to be a challenging topic for many reefers. When I started my tank, I was using an SLR (a non-digital for the newer generation); yes, we used to shoot using film and wait for days to finish the roll and get it developed. I remember taking notes on how each...

www.reef2reef.com

Do post pics so others can suggest improvements you can make.

 

[Miami Reef]

Checkout the sticky threads on the top of the photography forum for a series of articles that I believe might help. Here's the link to the 1st one

Your Guide to Aquarium Photography #1 - Getting the Basics

Tank photography has been and continues to be a challenging topic for many reefers. When I started my tank, I was using an SLR (a non-digital for the newer generation); yes, we used to shoot using film and wait for days to finish the roll and get it developed. I remember taking notes on how each...

www.reef2reef.com

Do post pics so others can suggest improvements you can make.

I did read that sticky many times. Great write up!

@maroun.c

I’d love some critic on how I can improve my skills. It’s my first time using a DSLR in manual mode.

 

[maroun.c]

Pic 1 watch out for ur focus point I'd focus somewhere in the front third of the tank, seems u focused on the upper hinge so the rocks and fish are out of focus. U nailed the exposure as u overexposed the lights a bit. I'd crop to take out the lights as the bright spots leads the eye to look at it instead of the tank and it doesn't add anything to ur tank.

Pic 2
I'd.try to focus in the eye and use a bit of a faster shutter speed to freeze the motion l. Also I'd shoot perpendicular to the glass to minim8ze the distortion in the pic. I get great results with a flash for similar shots.

Pic 3 nice shot but if u zoom you'll see the noise from under exposure as well as the unsharpness due to possibly slow shutter speed.

Pic 4
U got better focus and depth of field hers but a bit of motion blurr on some fish maybe a faster shutter but not bad for fts

Pic 5 again the focus is on that front , and the white light is a bit distracting. try to shoot perpendicular to the glass for sharper shots.

Pic 6
Better than pic 5in focusing and angle would crop a bit on the bottom and maybe the top of the tank

Pic 7
My favorite from the set, you nailed focus on the eye, colors and shutter speed. I'd crop tighter on the fish for more subject isolation, coping out the yellow tang which is cut and adds nothing to the pic. Maybe add a bit of sharpness and a tiny bit of contrast in post processing and clean the dirts in the water.

Pic 8
Not bad, if this is to track tNk growth in future I would zoom more to get to see corals better as the topnpart of the tank adds nothing to the pic unless u wanted to show the low scape...

pic 9
Good focus and better shutter speed than previous but id still love sharper fish. Maybe higher iso if ur camer has low noise on higher iso or maybe just increase the lights for such shots if ur not in 100 percent already.

Sorry on phone so can't see the shots parameters if they're there for better input.
What camera and lense did u use ? I see some purple fringe on your hippo tang in few shots, nothing u can do here but seems ur lense has a bit too much purple fringe.
Did u post processing these or straight from camera?
Shooting on tripod ? That would help especially with ur full tanknshots, a remote trigger or a delay shutter might help a bit more but that's mainly fir macro. Shooting in tripod will allow u to focus more on your composition and angle.
Try to get your zoom.right in camera, cropping will make u loose pixels, not a big deal if u have a high pixel camera but always better to get it right in camera

 

[Miami Reef]

Pic 1 watch out for ur focus point I'd focus somewhere in the front third of the tank, seems u focused on the upper hinge so the rocks and fish are out of focus. U nailed the exposure as u overexposed the lights a bit. I'd crop to take out the lights as the bright spots leads the eye to look at it instead of the tank and it doesn't add anything to ur tank.

Pic 2
I'd.try to focus in the eye and use a bit of a faster shutter speed to freeze the motion l. Also I'd shoot perpendicular to the glass to minim8ze the distortion in the pic. I get great results with a flash for similar shots.

Pic 3 nice shot but if u zoom you'll see the noise from under exposure as well as the unsharpness due to possibly slow shutter speed.

Pic 4
U got better focus and depth of field hers but a bit of motion blurr on some fish maybe a faster shutter but not bad for fts

Pic 5 again the focus is on that front , and the white light is a bit distracting. try to shoot perpendicular to the glass for sharper shots.

Pic 6
Better than pic 5in focusing and angle would crop a bit on the bottom and maybe the top of the tank

Pic 7
My favorite from the set, you nailed focus on the eye, colors and shutter speed. I'd crop tighter on the fish for more subject isolation, coping out the yellow tang which is cut and adds nothing to the pic. Maybe add a bit of sharpness and a tiny bit of contrast in post processing and clean the dirts in the water.

Pic 8
Not bad, if this is to track tNk growth in future I would zoom more to get to see corals better as the topnpart of the tank adds nothing to the pic unless u wanted to show the low scape...

pic 9
Good focus and better shutter speed than previous but id still love sharper fish. Maybe higher iso if ur camer has low noise on higher iso or maybe just increase the lights for such shots if ur not in 100 percent already.

Sorry on phone so can't see the shots parameters if they're there for better input.
What camera and lense did u use ? I see some purple fringe on your hippo tang in few shots, nothing u can do here but seems ur lense has a bit too much purple fringe.
Did u post processing these or straight from camera?
Shooting on tripod ? That would help especially with ur full tanknshots, a remote trigger or a delay shutter might help a bit more but that's mainly fir macro. Shooting in tripod will allow u to focus more on your composition and angle.
Try to get your zoom.right in camera, cropping will make u loose pixels, not a big deal if u have a high pixel camera but always better to get it right in camera

Thank you SO much!!

I can’t wait to take photos again and see how I can improve! You gave me excellent advice!

Here’s my camera lens. Do you think it causes the blue tang to look purple? I set the white balance on the camera to 10k and did not do any editing in the photos except for the close up shot of the blue tang to make it look less purple.

 

[maroun.c]

Most probably the lense as kit lenses are famous for urple fringing. Not a huge deal really. A better lense would of course have less of the effect and will have a wider fix aperture for faster shutter speed. Again that would be a larger investment where st this stage current lense is still more than enough.

 

[Miami Reef]

Most probably the lense as kit lenses are famous for urple fringing. Not a huge deal really. A better lense would of course have less of the effect and will have a wider fix aperture for faster shutter speed. Again that would be a larger investment where st this stage current lense is still more than enough.

Agreed! I still need to learn how to use the camera before considering to upgrade.

I find the DSLR is a major upgrade to taking photos with my phone.

 

[World Citizen]

A simple method.

Put your camera in RAW mode. And shoot in manual mode (M on most cams)
Lower the shutter way down. (WAY DOWN!. Photo's will be almost black)
Open in Gimp or Photoshop or Pixlr.com and up the exposure.

This way you have a very low shutterspeed (low exposure). So fish are crisp (fast movements).
The photo wil come out of the camera pretty much black (low shutter). You think "That photo is useless.".
But it's not. Open it in a .RAW editor and up the exposure.
Also shift the temperature a bit.
Due to being a RAW photo it will pick up alle the colors and you end up with a sharp collorfull foto.

Low shutter/Low Exposure + RAW photo is simple and effective.

 

[maroun.c]

A simple method.

Put your camera in RAW mode. And shoot in manual mode (M on most cams)
Lower the shutter way down. (WAY DOWN!. Photo's will be almost black)
Open in Gimp or Photoshop or Pixlr.com and up the exposure.

This way you have a very low shutterspeed (low exposure). So fish are crisp (fast movements).
The photo wil come out of the camera pretty much black (low shutter). You think "That photo is useless.".
But it's not. Open it in a .RAW editor and up the exposure.
Also shift the temperature a bit.
Due to being a RAW photo it will pick up alle the colors and you end up with a sharp collorfull foto.

Low shutter/Low Exposure + RAW photo is simple and effective.

Interesting technique yet the amount of noise that it will create would not allow for quality shots, especially as its from an entry level dslr which won't have a good noise performance.
Many other methods exist and up to the OP to try and chose:
- a faster 50 mm 1.8 is a minimum invetestment that will allow for much faster shutter speed
- high iso and getting exposure right in camera usually creates less noise than boosting exposure in pp. Add to that a faster lense like the 50mm 1.8 and it would be rather easier to take quality shots.
-using an on camera flash (not built in) and bouncing it up with use of a diffusor, and minimizing flash exposure to make use of available light, allows for non washed out colors and flash will freeze fish motion.
Again the technique you describe is new to me and I haven't seen it used for aquarium shots, definitely something to try but as stated I'd be concerned with the amount of noise which will be generated.

 

[World Citizen]

@maroun.c

I did these with the Canon EOS 500D + 18x55mm Kitlens. Like I wrote with the low shutter method.

 

[gbru316]

Interesting technique yet the amount of noise that it will create would not allow for quality shots, especially as its from an entry level dslr which won't have a good noise performance.
Many other methods exist and up to the OP to try and chose:
- a faster 50 mm 1.8 is a minimum invetestment that will allow for much faster shutter speed
- high iso and getting exposure right in camera usually creates less noise than boosting exposure in pp. Add to that a faster lense like the 50mm 1.8 and it would be rather easier to take quality shots.
-using an on camera flash (not built in) and bouncing it up with use of a diffusor, and minimizing flash exposure to make use of available light, allows for non washed out colors and flash will freeze fish motion.
Again the technique you describe is new to me and I haven't seen it used for aquarium shots, definitely something to try but as stated I'd be concerned with the amount of noise which will be generated.

If OP is using a crop body (which they almost surely are), a 35mm f/1.8 is the “normal” equivalent to 50mm. That’s where I’d spend my money.

Agreed! I still need to learn how to use the camera before considering to upgrade.

I find the DSLR is a major upgrade to taking photos with my phone.

Think of good glass as an investment. It has more of an impact on photo quality than any body upgrade. I shot professionally with a consumer grade crop body for a while and it did just fine. But I was using a $1200 lens.

If you stick with a product line (Nikon, canon, etc) glass should continue to work just fine when you upgrade your body.