Calling all DSLR owners,need alittle help..

[noah's nemo]

OK,i just got my first dslr,its unbelievable in so many ways.Only problem is i can only get great results in all auto settings.I get great detail with it,but i'm trying to capture what my fish and tank look like without a flash.You know,how everything looks under the lights.I try to mess with iso,aperture,shutter speed and whatever else it has,no luck.I've searched google and i am more confused

,any simple tips would be great .like i said this camera is awseome,point and shoots can't even hold a candle to it,heres a couple auto pics....

 

[bluebob88]

What kind of camera did you get?
If you are doing a full tank shot I would wait until night so there is no sun. Turn off all the lights in the room except your fish tank lighting. Use a tripod if you have one, otherwise get something you can set your camera on. The higher the iso the faster the shutter speed will be, but the more grainy it will be.
As for fish the more light the better, because they are always moving.
For this picture I set the iso to 800 and took the pic. The shutter speed was 1/25 s.
http://www.aquariumphotos.net/img/1270272236.jpg
I am no expert, this is just my 2 cents.
This website might help you out too. Just found it today myself.
http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/
You should add some of your photos to my website.
http://www.aquariumphotos.net

 

[ibanez]

What kind of camera and lens? What is the speed of the lens?

 

[noah's nemo]

Sony Alpha 330L....Its a 18-55mm,and i'll be getting a 55-200 sometime soon..
Bluebob,whenever i adjust my iso i seem to lose some detail.I've tried some sequntial shooting,which is cool,but i still can't capture the lighting of the tank and retain the detail of the fish.I'll take a closer look at the link you posted later today.Thanks.

 

[mrdc]

I think I need to play around with my settings too. I have a Rebel DSLR and I try using the auto setting too often. I also have a telephoto lens that takes great macro pics but again I think they could be better if I played around more with the settings. I will let you know if I figure out anything.

 

[cranberry]

One thing that you can do is save peeps pics to your harddrive and then right click and check out the properties if they didn't erase them all. It will tell you exactly the setting someone used to take a pic and you can use those values as a place to start. Now, it makes a difference of what camera and what lens they are using (the properties will give ya that info as well) because different cameras are capable of "pulling off" different feats. Even when I get a new camera or a new lens, I have to practice and figure out how to make the pictures sing.
What kind of lighting do you have on your tank?
I'm going to go check out your camera and see what it's capable of...

 

[cranberry]

Originally Posted by Cranberry
http:///forum/post/3261178
One thing that you can do is save peeps pics to your harddrive and then right click and check out the properties if they didn't erase them all.
Which is what you did. Sometimes playing with it in photoshop etc, their properties get deleted in production. Would you have an untouched photo to send me? I want to check out what you are shooting at. Send me more than one if you can. Take some in auto if you can as well so I can see what the camera is defaulting to, that we we can see what we can change to make it better.
Don't worry about focus or clean glass.. etc etc etc... just so I can see what's going on over there.

 

[ibanez]

I think you need to adjust your aperture to pic up more light with the fast shutter speed to stop movement.

 

[oneradtek]

if youre trying to get no flash, i have a canon rebel but you can set up a creative setting that allows u to change minimal things, but u can chose to not have flash. other than that, youll have to play around with ur cams techniques and see what works, it takes awhile to get used to shooting in manual. the speed of ur lens is what ur f-stop/aperture will be....so like for me my lens is a 100mm f/2.8 and the lower the f-stop the faster u can take pictures because it lets more light in, but gives u a narrower depth of field or DOF
i usually only shoot corals in macro but for instance, so for me i would use about 400iso, f/9.0-11'ish and shutter speed of around 1/75th depending on conditions

 

[noah's nemo]

Thanks for all the input everyone.I have been tweaking all the setting and messing around with my lighting(which is nothig to brag about).So far i think my problem is ,i'm not getting enough light in,so i raise the iso which creates a lack of detail..I'm going to try and take some at night with no lights but the tank and see how those turn out..not something you learn overnight ,thats for sure.Thanks again

 

[cranberry]

No matter how we fiddle with the camera settings, if there isn't enough light, it will be hard to get a decent pic. My camera has a lot of support in low light... alot of my pics are taken with an iso of 400... but my camera and lens supports that. Shoot, I have one pic floating around here that is 1600 Iso.
When my lights are too low, I use clamp on reflectors and 500k blubs.

 

[saxman]

i know you're trying to get a feel for settings, but one thing i can add is that Renee (Cranberry) shoots pretty much exclusively from a tripod (she taught me that trick) to take advantage of some of slower shutter speeds when using aperture-preferred mode.
just thought i'd toss that in there, cuz it made a HUGE difference for me the day she handed me a tripod.

 

[scsinet]

You can get a piece of black tape and stick it over the flash.
Believe it or not, this is what I do on a camera I spent $1300 on because I'm too lazy to figure it all out.

 

[oneradtek]

photoshop can make it look a little better with an auto level

with no photoshop

 

[noah's nemo]

I have played around in photoshop,personally i like my original one better,it has more detail in his spots,the other one they are just whited out and kinda hazy.Anyway,thats not what i am trying to capture.I want a great detailed pic of the fish,only with the lighting of the tank,not flash.Also,we took back the sony,wife really never did like it.Too big,too heavy,too complicated.We got an Olympus with some extra goodies,and i swear the thing is 1/2 the size.Well not really,but it is lighter and smaller,and i got an extra lens.Checked reviews and people love it.....Have yet to really fiddle with it yet,but i will..See ,i think the pics i shot are great,i was just trying to get that tank look and feel,like when your just sitting looking in your tank with nothing but the tank lights on.I guess my lights are not strong enough..Thanks again to everyone responding...