# General > Member's Lounge > Photography >  comments. 4ft tank pic with wide angle.

## loupgarou

ok: I've took like 20 to 30 shots on so many settings but I can't figure out what's the right way.

ie: I tried auto depth of field, programmed exposure, landscape etc.

problem: auto depth of field gives best focus but it is always under exposed.
*so I tried auto depth of field, focus lock, change to manual then go to programmed exposure, but no luck*


I can't figure it out yet. anyway the setup wasn't ideal (ie: shielding from mh. omnibounces, a proper way to position the flashes above the tank (need to get the white grid light diffuser to put on top of the tank) etc.

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## naturetan

What's your reason for using flashes for this shot? Is your tank lighting low?
What you're looking for? Aquascaping photography or fish photography? This will help you decide what function or technique to use.

BTW, since your camera is new, it might have some exposure metering error. Have you tried taking other subjects under bright daylight conditions? 
Are all those photos underexposed to some degree? Usually I'll do a metering calibration if I suspect metering problem and it's new. However, 
understanding how your metering works is extremely important to get the effect you want.

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## benny

Hi Chris,

Size down the picture to 600 or 700 pixels wide and put the previous one taken by me for comparison. Others will have a better idea what you are trying to achieve.

What exactly are you not happy with from the above picture anyway?

Cheers,

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## loupgarou

Compare. both are 700 pixels wide.

taken by me:



taken by benny.



noticable: lighting (or exposure), a brownish tone (white balance? or just peat in the water?), sharpness,

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## juggler

The pics showed both tanks at different periods. So cannot compare exactly.
But is your tank (top pic) that brownish? Or that bright as taken by Benny?

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## benny

> ----------------
> On 10/1/2003 11:53:34 AM 
> 
> noticable: lighting (or exposure), a brownish tone (white balance? or just peat/novatabs in the water?), sharpness (depth of field?) 
> 
> ----------------



Ok. Let's see...

Lighting. Or exposure.

I assume that you are not happy with the two sides being dark. To get to the same kind of even illumination that I did to your tank, You need to pull up the MH light and supplement the left and right side with fill in flash. Make sure your reflection is not caught in the glass as a result of the high position of the MH light.

Brownish tone.

Your MH light is not pure white. It's probably below 6500 K. Coupled with the fact that you have driftwood leeching tanins into the water, it's natural that the water is slightly yellowish. In addition to that, your most recent pictures shows an exposed foreground, which is made up of reddish/brownish substrate. This reflects the yellow light and tints the water even further. All this can be correct with post photography editing or....

1. Change water 1 day before you take tank pictures.
2. Change MH bulb to 10,000/20,000 K for picture taking.
3. Cover the foreground with green plants to reduce the reddish cast.
4. Switch off the MH light and use 3 X overhead flash instead.

Sharpness or depth of field.

If you desire front to back sharpness, then use a smaller F-stop like F16 or F22. However, the trade off is that your shutter speed will decrease significantly and all your fishes will appear as blurrish images whilst the plants appears sharp (at least those not swaying to the filter output will be sharp). You have to find a middle ground on this and the recommend speed will be above 1/30 seconds. Anything lower will be usually a disaster unless you have only gouramis or whiptail catfishes in your tank. A higher ISO setting will allow you to push the shutter speed up while holding the F stop, but you get grainy pictures.

Cheers,

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## hwchoy

what's that plant in the foreground!

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## loupgarou

ok: I'll try again later today, been running the diatom filter (twice I might add, so much gunk to filter).

foreground for the tank taken by benny is hemianthus micranthemoide.

foreground for the tank taken by me: nothing besides crypts and eriocaulon cinereum..

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## loupgarou

iso setting. (I think 200 or 400)
shutter speed = 1/80
tv mode
flash: single bounce flash (yeah,, lazy to do full setup at midnight.)
fe lock point at the dark area.

here's the results. I think its nearly there.


cropped region.


small original cropped area not resized


how the setup was like.


I tried AV mode... all it did was give me a slow shutter speed cos not enough light and I had cardinal tetra speedmarks all over the place. (was fun though).

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## lsz

First of all, i dont see a need for flash in this picture. It will look better if you off your room light. Take your light reading from the tank. 

And since you are using digital. You can afford to have infinite tries anyway. And since you mentioned you tried 20,30 times, might as well set an aperture, stick to it, and vary just the shutter speed. Your results will be more consistentthan using Auto mode. You can make adjustments much more accurately. Put it to manual, lock the apeture and just adjust your shutter speed in steps. 

What i see from your pictures are that they are underexposed. 

Wide angles offer generous &amp;quot;depth of field&amp;quot;. 
In your particular situation, i will just use at most f8. Beyond that, you dont see much difference.
Avoid both extremes if you can. Because the sweet spot is near to the middle of the apeture range.

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## loupgarou

actually, in my case, I suspect the metering was wrong. metering is done on the center (ie: directly under the MH light).

apparently, the 300D must HOLD the FEL button and then click the shutter button (unlike other models where the FE metering takes hold for 12s.)

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## juggler

I believe you took the metering from the centre where the brightest spot is. This fools the camera into thinking every part of the tank is the same bright lighting and so they shorten the exposure to suit the brightest spot.

Try taking metering (shutter half pressed?) from each part of the tank. If the right lighting results show on the LCD, then use that exposure to take your pic.

If your MH is too strong, then turn it off and use your camera flash bounced off the ceiling or fired remotely to brighten the tank. Try taking a longer exposure with the MH off and using no flash too. Then see what's best. you can also raise your MH height too, right?

Cheers!

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## lsz

If the meter at the tank center is done correctly, you picture should look ok.

Even if the camera is fooled, it doesnt matter in this case. Because what you want is just the correct exposure of the tank. If the rest are under, it may just look even better (opposite of silhouette)

 example where it is good to fool the camera  

The picture was scanned from a print. Dusty. Look beyond that. 

I do not have spot metering in my camera 
so take with your heart  :Smile:  

[url=http://www.pbase.com/image/17364467] another example not so good [url] 

SO your tank picture, if taken correctly, should be against a very dark backdrop.
see if you can take at night with the room light off. 
if possible off any light near the room


ANd i still feel that you should not use flash.
SImple reason being the flash will bring out some parts of your fish tank that are not so pretty. Eg dusty rim, Silicon dirty etc. 

Get a tripod or something, set to full manual mode, set your aperture to around f8-f11 at most, use the camera reading to take a shot first and then bracket both ways. sure can get one you like

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## naturetan

> ----------------
> On 10/4/2003 7:31:13 PM 
> 
>  example where it is good to fool the camera  
> 
> ----------------


A sexy girl? Or now my eyes is fooled too?  :Razz:

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## lsz

Ha 

my passion in people and life 

will like to invite you to take a look at pictures the kind of pictures that i take interest in 

 Hi People 

 Rainy day 

 mirror of society  

 I love people. People on the streets  

loupgarou sorry i rode on your post

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## naturetan

> ----------------
> On 10/5/2003 1:03:50 AM 
> 
> my passion in people and life 
> 
> ----------------


Can really feel that! Interesting ones you have! :Smile:

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## loupgarou

latest. hand held at 1/100 shutter Tv mode. under my new 2 x 150w MH lights

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## loupgarou

can't really analyse this yet. (*ie: too much data)

http://www.tdsuo.com/fish/album2003-10-31b/index.html

basically its a settings test of all camera modes.
ISO 100-400, all apertures 4.0 to 8.0, shutter speeds 1/15 to 1/100

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