spspirates 150 gallon build

spspirate · Nov 30, 2015

TinpanVA said:
Anxious to see how the blueberry grows for you, mine is one of the faster growers in the tank. Nor did it lose any of its colors. Great looking piece.

I want to see a pic of yours! Colors and shape of this coral is amazing. I hope to get some nice growth coming my way too!

spspirate · Nov 30, 2015

So trying something totally new to me with my Canon Rebel T3i. Taking pics under actinic lighting. Problem Im facing is white balancing. No matter what I do the camera is producing "purple" light coming from the ReefBrites not "blue". I tried white balancing with a white sheet of paper under the actinics. I've tried balancing with just a white sheet of paper.....UH. No guru with the camera but would love some pointers here. I took a couple that turned out OK but not what Im really looking for. I know Im picky!..LOL

kschweer · Nov 30, 2015

Those look really good man! I am by far a camera expert (you've seen my pictures lol) but I have seen some talk about using a grey color to set the white balance. I think Gary from @Reef Pets had a thread about it. Also maybe try something plastic instead of paper so you can put it into the water to set the balance. Just a thought, maybe shooting outside of the water and in the water effects the camera differently.

spspirate · Nov 30, 2015

Thanks bro! I'll keep this in mind next time I shoot.

rs1831 · Dec 1, 2015

Battlecorals did a nice write up on how to take these types of photos.

jasonandsarah · Dec 1, 2015

I believe white Pvc under water is what Clayalaleona suggested. She takes some pretty amazing pics under all blues.

TinpanVA · Dec 1, 2015

spspirate said:
I want to see a pic of yours! Colors and shape of this coral is amazing. I hope to get some nice growth coming my way too!

Here is 3 months growth

Here it is last month (3 months in tank)

To answer your questions on setting white balance, here is what I've found to be the best way. They make a lens cap that has a white balance cover built in.

I use these every time I shoot the tank. I also have the plastic submersible cards, but these work much better.

To use; just place the lens cap on the camera after you've set up your shot and take a picture. You'll need to set the camera's WB to custom. Once you take the picture, open the "menu" and select custom white balance. Select the picture you just took with the cap on. Your WB will now be as close as you can get it. Final tweaking can be done post, like in lightroom.

Couple of points. The T3i and many others, can only adjust so far, once you have very very blue light, it will max out the settings and the rest will have to be adjusted post.

I also set my AI LEDs to a specific setting while I'm shooting so it doesn't change (clouds, ramp up/down) and if I change the angle of my camera, I'll retake a WB picture. That might be a little overboard, but that's how I roll.

EDIT: Its worth mentioning the 3 options shown in the picture above. To the far left is the WB cap made by Expodisc. By far the best and most expensive, somewhere near the 100 mark. In the middle is Promaster's knockoff, it's about 15 bucks and available closeby down at Richmond Camera. It's clearly not as well built and doesn't always give you consistent results, but it's the one I use. It gets me close enough where some final tweaking can be done. Plus if it breaks, I can buy 4 or 5 before I get close to what it costs for the Expodisc.
The one on the far right is a DIY cap, tons of videos on how to make one. Personally, I'd go with promaster, get close, go from there. If you have the scratch and want the best, by all means get the expo. B&H are running a sale (yesterday) maybe still get a good deal this week if you shop around.

Another EDIT: As mentioned above by others, either using plastic WB cards or white PVC to set WB, keep in mind using neutral grey is preferred over something white. Given the choice, I'd use grey PVC before using white and same for the plastic cards.

If you want to borrow either, I have all of the above. Just hit me up. I'm assuming you already have a porthole, but if not, gots one of those too.

spspirate · Dec 1, 2015

Thanks Paul for the useful info! I'll see if I can't apply some of those things you mentioned. I think I'm going to try the grey card and see how that works out for me this week.
Your RG Blueberry Fantasy looks awesome! Nice job.

BigJohnny · Dec 1, 2015

Can also take in raw (if you have that option) and edit white balance after the fact. Save your setting after one picture and apply to the rest (with minor tweaking if necessary)