Dave Learns How to Take Photos

[DaveB]

Higher ISO on digital reduces the color accuracy of most cameras (the more $ the camera, the better it does usually) If you shoot RAW it is easily correctable but you will still have noise. The problem that you face shooting with no flash is you have to combine the high ISO with a high (lower number) aperture, and most lenses do not have their sweet spot wide open. The pictures look great but to really amp it up, try either reflecting the flash up towards ceiling without the hood on the tank, or shooting with external flash mounted above water.

The fact that this all makes sense to me means that in addition to the camera itself, I am actually way more skilled than I was three days ago. Excellent.

This is why I was asking about speedlites. My built in flash can't point straight up, so it has use there, and obviously the foam or gutter tricks on the top of the tank will be very useful too.

 

[R1_Ridah]

Great pick up on the new camera. Your San Merah's look incredible. I like the red theme of the tank.

Since all I have are my aquarium lights (48" Jebo Power Compact) I normally shoot at 3.5 Aperture, 30-40 Shutter Speed, 1250-3200 ISO, center focus point. In post I'll increase the sharpness if needed and then crop to reduce for posting. I need more light in my tank so I can decrease the ISO.

 

[jcardona1]

Pics look great, and those discus are awesome!

I know you just started messing with the camera, but I strongly suggest to start practicing in manual mode, so you can learn how each settings affects exposure, and how they make your pictures look. In manual mode, you'll be setting the aperture, ISO, and shutter speed yourself.

Best of all, you get consistent results from one picture to the next. When using any of the auto modes, you're relying on the camera's TTL metering. It works fine most of the time, but the results will be inconsistent from one pic to the next. For example, if you shift the camera angle a little, your exposure (settings) will change. Zoom in or out, exposure will change. The composition changes, meaning you have more or less fish in the scene, the exposure will change. In manual mode, once you get the exposure you want, you just shoot away, and all your pictures will look the same. This goes for general photography also, not only aquariums.

These days I rarely shoot in anything besides manual mode. I just don't like relying on the camera to make the decisions, as sometimes it gives you wonky results. Manual mode may seem very foreign right now, but once you get the hang of it, you'll love it

 

[zypher]

What ^^ he said!..

 

[DaveB]

Great pick up on the new camera. Your San Merah's look incredible. I like the red theme of the tank.

Thanks. I think they're going to go very well with the wilds that share the same brown base but have the blue striations too, which sort of blend with the Orangeheads and the two blue discus I have in there too. I shot most of those pics without any consideration as to composition, largely because I was hoping to show how the fish contrasted with each other and to get opinions from people like you about that. (Now, I know where I'm going with the fish... but aquascaping? Still at square zero. This shape tank sucks.)

Since all I have are my aquarium lights (48" Jebo Power Compact) I normally shoot at 3.5 Aperture, 30-40 Shutter Speed, 1250-3200 ISO, center focus point. In post I'll increase the sharpness if needed and then crop to reduce for posting. I need more light in my tank so I can decrease the ISO.

I absolutely LOVE the amount of light you have. The 48" over a 72" tank is awesome, and that's what I do downstairs in my other tank (I have one 40w powerglo over it). When I get the 220 84" set up I still want to keep it extra low light, which will mean I'll have some real challenges for pictures.

Anyway, this tank is just 2 x 40w AquaGlos and it is much brighter than it needs to be, even with the "plants" floating up at the surface. It's really cheap to add a couple of other lights to the top of yours that you only use for photo shoots, so that might be worth trying. IME, the Aquaglo fluorescents bring out color way better than any of the 10000k CF fixtures I've used. In fact, I've got 3 48" 2x65w CF sitting downstairs in the closet because I prefer the look and intensity of the cheaper stuff. I've been trying halfheartedly to sell them for a while now. No takers.

Pics look great, and those discus are awesome!

Thanks. Now that I see what I can get wilds for, price-wise, I feel like I overpaid for them, but this adult SM pair is really really nice. I need to toss in some peat and see if they'll get frisky again. They were proven before I bought them.

I know you just started messing with the camera, but I strongly suggest to start practicing in manual mode, so you can learn how each settings affects exposure, and how they make your pictures look. In manual mode, you'll be setting the aperture, ISO, and shutter speed yourself.

Oh, definitely. My plan is to set up some time and take the same photo over and over with every basic mode as well as with every little tweak I can do in manual. These past two days I've just been snapping pics in amazement at just how much better it is than the Point and Shoot PoS I had before... I'm just amazed at how much more clearly it captures things without a flash than the other one did with one. How easy it is, how much more accurate it is, even at its worst. I'm just getting started. And since the basic modes all tell me what settings they use, I can use that to learn what types of ratios and relationships are common for certain purposes, how that affects photos that I set up, and that'll get my mind wrapped around everything a bit more quickly, I think.

Plus I guess I want to be really familiar with those for impromptu "hurry up and take that picture of the dog doing something cute before he moves!" shots when I don't have time to use manual. But yeah, my goal is obviously to get as detailed and in control as possible. I'd consider it a success if I reached a point where I was able to honestly say I needed a better camera. And reaching that point wouldn't insult the wife, either, as I think that'd mean I totally got my money's worth.

Now that I have my own thread I won't clutter the other one responding about the speedlites - but outside of me taking pics of the animals, what other types of photos/scenes/settings do you find are greatly enhanced by having multiple speedlites? I was surprised to hear you say that they're money better spent than lenses or fish.

 

[Red Devil]

great pics Dave..love the collection of fish and the dogs are awesome cute.

 

[jcardona1]

Now that I have my own thread I won't clutter the other one responding about the speedlites - but outside of me taking pics of the animals, what other types of photos/scenes/settings do you find are greatly enhanced by having multiple speedlites? I was surprised to hear you say that they're money better spent than lenses or fish.

See the thing about fast pro lenses is, they're great if you do a lot of low light shooting where you need a constant f/2.8 or faster aperture. But once you learn how apertures and depth of field affect a photo, you'll see that an aperture of f/2.8 or bigger is not ideal when shooting groups of people, or when you want an entire scene in focus. This is when the speedlights come in handy, as they allow you to use a smaller aperture to have more of the scene in focus.

There's nothing worse than taking a photo of a 2-4 people only to find that some of them weren't in focus because of the big aperture. In low light this may have to be a compromise, but not if you're using speedlights. I find myself rarely shooting in available light only because very rarely is available light good enought to give me an exposure I like. I use speedlights all the time now, even in bright outdoors sunlight to lift the harsh shadows an contrast you get on a face.

Here's a few examples of how I've used multiple speedlights. Some of these results you simply could not get if using just one light. I've been reading up a lot on studio lighting as it's a good reference. You'll notice that a true photography studio is using 3-4 light sources for a simple portrait, there's a reason for this

1 light, mounted on the camera, pointed right at the subjects. I was working fast here, in the water, and avoiding the waves! Otherwise I would have gone for an off-camera flash pointed from the right

Speedlight on camera, bounced directly behind me into an overhang

In this pic, I forgot my speedlight at the hotel. I hated the color of this pic, so I turned it b&w. Notice the harsh shadows on the faces? This is why I use flash at all times, even outdoors

Here's one that I screwed up, and I was really mad at myself. Used 1 speedlight, on camera, straight at the subject. But my aperture was too big and the depth of field was all wrong. Notice how the couple on the right is blurry?

This one I really like. 1 speedlight, on camera, straight at subject, using a plastic diffuser cap. The plastic diffuser works great outdoors. This is the only time I'll use the cap

Sometimes the natural light is perfect like I said. This was no flash, wide open at f/2.8. Focus on the most important thing, the EYES. Gives a nice portrait. But this is best used on single-person portraits

1 speedlight, on camera, bounced straight into the ceiling. This was a public aquarium, and the room was very very dark. The bounced flash gave a nice look on the faces, and I didn't get any reflection on the glass

Here's another example when natural light was good. Sun was just about to disappear behind the mountains. Sun was directly behind me, shining right at the subjects

Mother-in-law HATES this pic, but I love it lol! Dark room, one speedlight in a 16" softbox from the right

Ok, now the multiple speedlights

Here's I used a speedlight in a 16" softbox from the right, and another on the left going straight into the ceiling. See the difference in the skin tones and faces?

Speedlight in a 16" softbox from the left, 1 bounced into the ceiling from the right, behind the subjects.

16" softbox from the right, speedlight on the left into the ceiling

This is one I just took last night messing with some new type of lighting. Used 4 23w CFL bulbs into a 30" umbrella directly from the left. Was trying to experiment with hard side lighting to get a different look. Starting to look more into continuous lighting like you see in a studio as opposed to just using speedlights.

Hopefully that helps you out a bit so you can see how useful speedlights can be. Multiple lights give you a ton of flexibility. And with my Nikon D90, I can trigger them all wirelessly using the built-in commander mode. The on-board flash will send a signal to trigger all the speedlights in the room, it's really a cool feature. Not sure if Canon has the same thing.

Anyway, photography is all about lighting. In photography, you don't take pictures of subjects; you photographt the light that is falling on those subjects

 

[jcardona1]

And here's some pro photos from my contacts on Flickr. These were all taken with big studio lighting. These are amazing!!

3 lights sources here

3 light sources

behind the scenes look using continuous lighting

3 light sources here

1 big softbox from the right

 

[DaveB]

Wow. Thanks.

So have you reached a point where you're doing this as a profession? When did you start out? I know you've chronicled your venture into planted tank expertise on this site but that makes me unsure of whether you also did that with photos, or if you were good at that long before I got here.

My uncle is a wedding and portrait photographer. Back when I was in high school and we had a moderately good SLR available sometimes I learned a few things, but I forgot it all in the past 15 years. It's fun to learn it again when I have full access to my own camera to mess around with it. I really appreciate your time here.

At this point I'm a little confused by your first bit about the aperture, just cause you used the words faster and bigger, and so far I've been understanding it as wider. Of course, I can put them all together, but for now that's not all drilled into my head naturally so I can read that sentence without having to stop and think about it for a bit. That'll come though.

I know you don't use Macs, so this is a question for someone else: what's your process for creating macros (ie, how you organize your folders and save settings) in Photoshop? I have CS4 and I wonder if I've got some file system issues or if I just recorded it wrong... I just made a simple Web Save (resize, compress for web, save copy) that I'd love to have for everything, just for posting pics quickly to websites without having to edit them individually... but after the initial use, it stopped working... just threw errors at me (and still insisted on opening every single one and making me sit through it, resulting in a force quit to get my computer back). This camera will save a RAW + JPG which is pretty cool, but the jpg is still at 18mp and I'd rather save a full size RAW and like an 800x600-ish jpg. (Actually, I need to experiment to see if CS4 will open the Canon raw file format or if I'm forced to use their software first. That'd annoy me.)

 

[DaveB]

Oh. Here's a question. In that waterfall pic (where the lack of focus is really not that obvious to the layperson, or at least it's not on this screen at this size), would getting them in more focus with more optimal light affect the waterfall at all? I assume it's far enough away so as not to be affected by the actual light, but if more light = more optimal aperture for your photo of the people, would that aperture change also change how the falls appear? Cause I kind of like how they look with that aperture. Of course, I don't know what you were going for with that as well as you do.

Sometimes I think a lot of the differences you point out, which are obvious to another pro or to anyone you explain it to here, get overlooked by consumers. So a photographer with lesser equipment and skill but a knack for getting great smiles and candid shots can still do well with portraiture and whatnot because most people are mostly concerned with composition and themselves. Even though I'm trying to get into this stuff, I still don't notice some of the details you explain without being told. And I'm looking a lot more critically than a person might. This explains the difference between your opinion and your mother in law's about that one shot.

That's not really relevant to anything; just an observation about what could possibly be unfair in the soliciting of business. My uncle, for instance, is surely as skilled as they come (he's over 60 and has done it his whole adult life). But I know he has people who absolutely hate his style. We ended up with a local guy for my own wedding who isn't even half his age, but had a real knack for getting great candid shots. Who knows if he's actually any good in the eyes of another photographer, though.