Strange your exif data says powershot, hmm. Anyways that's a way better camera so it'll be much easier to setup manual focus, probably just a switch next to the lens and you just turn the focus ring on the lens.

Do the extension tubes make that much of a difference. I was looking into a macro lens but had an employee from Mcbain tell me that I could achieve similar effects with a tube.

Sorry for the thread hijack

Tubes just decrease your min focus distance so they will add magnification but only if you can get closer to the subject. You also should still use a prime lens for good results. Personally don't think an extension tube can replace a macro lens.

Perfect thanks for the info

I do own that camera and upload images on this computer, it could of been a mix up. How do you find the exif?

Is there away to have the raw photo show up on this forum?free?

Right now I am using the free photo bucket and convert the raw to jpeg.


Custom white balance: I went to the dollar store and brought a piece of white computer paper with me to match up against a plastic bowl, will this work if I were to put it in the aquarium set custom white balance?

http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/q...8/IMG_0503.jpg

http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/q...8/IMG_0455.jpg

http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/q...8/IMG_0493.jpg

http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/q...8/IMG_0496.jpg

3rd pic kind of turned out.

whats that white circle in the middle? dirty lens or sensor?

The only real difference between those four photos is that you got your focus point right on the third one, the other three just aren't in focus so you just need some practice with manual focus. I also noticed you changed your aperture to F22, which I don't think you needed to do, your DOF will probably be fine at F8 or so for those pics. While F22 will give you more DOF you also increase your shutter speed which can make it harder to get a sharp picture so until you master your focusing try and speed up your shots. Once you master that and feel you could use some more DOF then decrease your aperture (higher number).

Your WB is still off a bit, I would try using the sand or zoom into a grey piece of rock before resulting to other methods. This usually works for me just fine.

Also unless you have a program like photoshop that allows you to edit and process raw files don't shoot in raw. It's not helping. If you want email (83phelps@gmail.com) me your raw file for #3 and I can give you an idea what post processing can do for you. For now shoot in jpeg.

So keep up the good work, continue to practice shooting in manual focus and work on getting your subject perfectly focused. Also make sure your viewfinder is adjusted properly for your eye sight, sometimes this causes problems, see your manual for details. Also always be sure to position your lens perpendicular to the glass.

Oh and that spot does look like it could be related to your sensor, probably needs cleaning.

I just moved. so in a few week's hopefully I'll be taking shots of my new tank.

thanks for the advice, i'm going to look into on how to clean my sensor and seting up custom whitebalance for my next shot, along with trying to focus better.

A probelem with the focus could be if you're using the camera's "beep" for focus, and that will be wrong when using tubes. At least it is on my camera. My camera defaults to infinity focus as soon as a lense is connected using an adapter.

I brought my camera in and there is no problem with a dirty sensor but a permenent problem with the sensor. stuck or dead pixel's, so I played around with photoshop and it seems that I can get away with it by bluring the image and adding noise to a small area to make it look decent in photo shop.

not sure how this will effect the pic if I choose to develope it?


either way I will just use this camera to learn from before buying another if I do.

in the next few day's I will post some pic's.

finaly I am settled down in my new place to take pics


I got a free photoshop when I took my computer in to get cleaned, but now I am learning to use windows 7, firefox etc so things are a little different, just learning this. i'm switching from internet explorer,xp, oldschool.