Rays on a budget- My (somewhat long) story w/pics

[Clearwater guy]

Playing around with this new lens today, and getting a feel....

for one, 50mm is a bit much for fish perhaps. I think a fixed lens of about 35mm would be a bit better for fish pics...I had to stand all the way back against the wall to take the pic of the hatching system and still didn't get it all. It's a trade-off no matter what, but you can't get as good of pics under low light conditions with any variable zoom lens...the extra glass in there sucks up a lot of the light.

Aside from that, The manual focus is incredibly fickle. I guess I don't have a good enough eye to do it well...but my percentage of clear and in-focus shots is WAY lowwer now...BUT, it does perform WAY better when I can get it right...so I just have to take 100 pictures to get a couple good ones instead of 10 or 20.

Amongst todays shooting, however....I did find what I think is an amazing shot to represent my business, so I added to it and made it mine. Whatever hit the water there is the only way you can tell that they are in a 13" deep pool.

With the other lens, this picture would be really grainy and blahhh....

Mike

 

[Egon]

^^^^^^ Sweet pic! Ya gota enter that in a pic of the month or post it in the photo thread, the guys would love it!

 

[Valous]

very nice pic. You cant tell there is water in there except because of the ripple and the fact that they are sting rays in there.

 

[tscharf]

beautiful pic mike, deff POTM worthy

 

[Clearwater guy]

Was able to get a couple pics that I NEVER would have gotten with the other lens...I know because I tried and tried.

Mike

 

[tscharf]

incredible

 

[Clearwater guy]

Moving along...here's some pics of the latest progress...I'm definately going to have to swicth back to the other lens for overview pics....This was as far away as I could possibly stand to take these ones...

So much for the wide open room eh? lol.

Well, There is a delay on a hufe order of stuff that I thought had shipped...but since a few sponge filters were on backorder, they help up the entire order...so I am stuck waiting for all the tank fittings and bulkheads and such. I don't need them right this second, but there are a lot of other things that I need also coming with this order. Oh well...it should be here early next week. I could go ahead and drill the holes in the tanks and have them all set up and ready, but I need to add several more 10g tanks somewhere too. so there's plenty that I can keep working on.

Oh...the pup nursery...the tank in the back there that is all brown...lol. My new PBass and 3 Plecos are in there for now...I got a new piece of wood for the Plecos to hang out on, and it's leaching tannins like crazy! Cool news though, the Pbass are already starting to take Premium Pellets. That is awesome because they will grow really fast on this feed, and it's cheap. So when they get older and larger, all I will need to do is supplement them with foods to help enhance their colors.

 

[Clearwater guy]

Well, I have 6 of the tanks carried downstairs, the last 2 go on top, so I'm waiting for some help.

Unfortunately, the tank fittings won't be here till monday, so I can't drill any holes yet...

But I have some more shelves to put up for 10g tanks... so I'm not out of things to do yet. I have 4 tanks full of individual fry hatches now. This is working so much better!

Mike

 

[Clearwater guy]

well, here is how they go in.

Anyone built racks like this? will I need to re-enforce the 2x4's? the weight breaks down to 150lbs per corner, so as long as it doesn't bow and cause the tanks to leak, it'll be fine...But I havn't seen a lot of 75's set up this way.

 

[tscharf]

looks great. did you think about resting them one 1 by 1 squares od 3/4 in plywood? would spread the load of the weight even more if necessary