Cellphone tips and tricks

[ca2or]

I know not all but a majority of us use our phones to take pics of our tanks. Curious what you guys do to get good pics.

Please post a pic, what type of phone you used, and anything "special" you did.

Here is mine as an example.

Motorola Nexus 6
I use snapseed for editing....here is a before and after.

Before

After

 

[FeliciaLynn]

Cool thread! I use an iPhone 5. The iPhone makes all the photos look WAY more blue than how the tank appears in person, so I just adjust my LED fixture more white until the photos match what I normally see with my eyes.

 

[ca2or]

Interesting. That tank looks awesome. So rather than mess with the camera you adjust lights. I take it you switch back after pics?

 

[Joshua Cline]

Following. I've been wondering if people use a certain IOS or Android camera app.

 

[ca2or]

Following. I've been wondering if people use a certain IOS or Android camera app.

For Android I find SnapSeed a must. It's free and quite amazing.

 

[FeliciaLynn]

Interesting. That tank looks awesome. So rather than mess with the camera you adjust lights. I take it you switch back after pics?

Yep! I've learned its much easier to just switch the light real quick before shooting photos than to have to post-process each individual photo afterward. I have a Maxspect Razor LED fixture which has 3 main settings: 1) Custom program (this is my custom light program and what the light is normally set to); 2) Factory program (generic light program); and 3) Manual, which isn't a program but is where you can just set the white and blue channels as you'd like and they don't ramp up or down or anything. I just set up the manual channel as the white to blue balance that works for my photos. Now whenever I want to take photos, I just push one button on the side of my fixture to switch to manual mode and shoot away!

 

[philfree]

Yep! I've learned its much easier to just switch the light real quick before shooting photos than to have to post-process each individual photo afterward. I have a Maxspect Razor LED fixture which has 3 main settings: 1) Custom program (this is my custom light program and what the light is normally set to); 2) Factory program (generic light program); and 3) Manual, which isn't a program but is where you can just set the white and blue channels as you'd like and they don't ramp up or down or anything. I just set up the manual channel as the white to blue balance that works for my photos. Now whenever I want to take photos, I just push one button on the side of my fixture to switch to manual mode and shoot away!

Great! i have a Razor as well, what do you have your "Manual settings" set to for each channel? I wanna try this.

 

[Hentz]

Here's an example also using the same app, Snapseed. This was a half before half after of my tank with T5 (4 Blue +, 2 Purple +)

 

[ca2or]

Here's an example also using the same app, Snapseed. This was a half before half after of my tank with T5 (4 Blue +, 2 Purple +)

What a difference that made. From washed out blue to color pop.

 

[AdamNC]

Following

 

[marcusbacus]

Galaxy S4 here. I use low ISO (the lowest possible, the better), no flash, no post processing at all most of the time (and if I do use it it's always something in the PC, not an app), but when there's a little more blue or another hue I fix it with levels in Photoshop. Sometimes I use the "sports" setup just to take a pic of a fast fish but not very often. If the ISO is set to low levels (below 400 I think) the camera stabilization feature (anti-shaking or something) is disabled, but I never used it anyway. The light setup of the camera is always on "auto". If you set it to fluorescent, it will make it even more blue, the auto is what gets me the more natural results. The zoom works great as well as seen in this pic and I've been using it a lot lately (4x, contrast fixed in Photoshop as it tend to get a little washed). The contrast is what I find to be the most complicated part, also the saturation. My lights at the moment are all T5 and more towards white than blue. If you use too much actinic, it's very hard to get accurate colours. I try to take pictures with the room lights off and at night, somehow it is a little better.

 

[wingnrotor]

Cool thread! I use an iPhone 5. The iPhone makes all the photos look WAY more blue than how the tank appears in person, so I just adjust my LED fixture more white until the photos match what I normally see with my eyes.

Look at those beautiful clams!!!

 

[AussieGaz]

Here's an example also using the same app, Snapseed. This was a half before half after of my tank with T5 (4 Blue +, 2 Purple +)

What setting on snapseed did you use for this?

 

[ngvu1]

Thank you for the tips. Any particular steps do you do in snapseed that you like?

 

[Tek]

In Snapseed I turn down the saturation and increase the warmth to reduce the blue and fix the colors. Sometimes I adjust the sharpness as well.

 

[FeliciaLynn]

Great! i have a Razor as well, what do you have your "Manual settings" set to for each channel? I wanna try this.

The setting that works well for me is whites at 70% and blues at 20%.

Look at those beautiful clams!!!

Thank you!

 

[RedneckReefer68]

Taken with nexus 6 under a kessil a160we with camera app called L-Camera edited with stock app on nexus

 

[Homebrwr]

Following along. Hopefully I can add some shots..

 

[un5tab1e]

I use yellow safety glasses in front of lens when I shoot. Without

with

 

[dyates442]

Galaxy S4 I don't do anything special but it looks more blue than in person