My beautiful new acro!
- Thread starter Pitcom
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OP
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Pitcom
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Its approx 6 inches tall, 7 including the base. it looks like a totem pole. I'll get a full shot later on, batteries are recharging for camera.
surfn
I bleed orange and maroon
what settings did you use with these pics?
pics are still looking a bit dark and blurry to me. are you shooting on a tri-pod with pumps off?
if you are using an XTi w/ the canon 100mm macro lens.......you should be getting allot more out of your pictures.
pics are still looking a bit dark and blurry to me. are you shooting on a tri-pod with pumps off?
if you are using an XTi w/ the canon 100mm macro lens.......you should be getting allot more out of your pictures.
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OP
OP
Pitcom
Not Reef Safe
I use a 100mm macro lens, the dop is extremely small. Its hard to have an entire piece in focus when your dop is 3/8" and the pice is 1.5" front to back. Especially when the acro is 1-2 feet from the camera. Thats why i usually choose a central point that i like for the main focus. If i used one of my other lenses i would have been able to have a totally focused shot.
The picture is taken with the actinic lights on. It's not that the picture is dark. The picture represents true lighting. If you came and looked in my tank at the coral, then looked at the picture, the lighting in the picture would represent the lighting in the tank to a tee.
This next piece illustrates when the coral branch is on the same plane and stays within the dop of course the picture comes out better. This picture again is a perfect representation of the coral if you were to come look at the tank yourself.
OP
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Pitcom
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How long have you had your piece. Congrats by the way on the pickup. I', really stoked about this one and am excited to find out what it colors up too in a couple months. Somone else already posted purple.
OP
OP
Pitcom
Not Reef Safe
I believe that last pic was 1/125, 5.6 and 400 for the values. I can check it with the canon program. Yes and that shot was actinic only. All of my shots are not just actinic, i take in both actinic and full spectrum.
surfn
I bleed orange and maroon
ahhhh......theres your problem. f/5.6 is waaay too small (i.e. aperature is too big), thus the reason why your depth of field is so small. and the picture is too dark probably b/c your shutter speed is too fast.......if you have your f-stop to around f/9-f/13, in Av mode the camera will automatically adjust your shutter speed depending on the available light...but it should set the shutter speed somewhere around 1/4 sec, thus allowing in more light....but to do this you need a tri-pod, and the pumps must be off.
these are the settings i use on my Canon XTi for macro pics:
-Av mode (dial on the top right of the camera)
-set f/stop to f/12 (normally take macro pics at f/9 to f/13). the higher the f/stop the greater the depth of field
-ISO 0 to 200
-exposure should be set to 0, make sure you don't have yours set to -2 Ev/Av
-make sure you are shooting your pics in RAW format
-Auto White Balance usually works just fine
-user the self-timer funciton....so the camera counts down from 10sec before taking the picture.
-make sure the lens is perfectly perpendicular to the glass of the tank
-make sure all pumps have been turned off.
-make sure you are shooting on a tri-pod (important when shooting in Av mode b/c the shutter speeds are longer).
-also, if you know how to set the custom functions.....make sure to turn "long exposure noise reduction" to ON, and "mirror lock-up" to ON.
also, make sure to set the lens to manual focus......and focus the lens manually yourself instead of letting the camera do it.
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OP
OP
Pitcom
Not Reef Safe
I appreciate the info. but its not a problem for me. I intended to take the picture with those settings. I do not like higher settings. Pictures look too fuzzy for me. Like your Potm picture, its grainy and fuzzy around all of the outlines of objects. I used to get that effect when i went to higher settings. There is nothing wrong with that but its not what im going for. I like working around 4-5.6 because the clairty when enlargening the picture is better. I'm also a big fan of the TV setting. I like to control how much light im accepting. I'm no camera expert, i just click and keep pictures that i find interesting.
surfn
I bleed orange and maroon
the reason why my picture looks grainy/fuzzy, its b/c i took the picture at night, with the lights out. i used a higher ISO and cropped the heck out of the image several times. i also lost quite a bit of quality after converting it to a jpeg.
if i was able to post the picture in RAW......its pretty darn clear up to 100% digital magnification.
just trying to help.....i'd say 99% of people taking macro pics of corals use settings very similar to the ones i described.
the picture you posted of the purple acro w/ green polyps was very good, but i bet if you cropped it another 50% you would start to see the graininess you described seeing in my picture. likewise my picture would get smoother if i took zoomed out......it was also at f/13....so i lost a bit of quality to get the greater depth of field in the original picture before i cropped.
if i was able to post the picture in RAW......its pretty darn clear up to 100% digital magnification.
just trying to help.....i'd say 99% of people taking macro pics of corals use settings very similar to the ones i described.
the picture you posted of the purple acro w/ green polyps was very good, but i bet if you cropped it another 50% you would start to see the graininess you described seeing in my picture. likewise my picture would get smoother if i took zoomed out......it was also at f/13....so i lost a bit of quality to get the greater depth of field in the original picture before i cropped.
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