Troubles with Nikon D70s SLR

[Gooly001]

The trick to shooting through a fish tank is understanding the concept of White Balance. Although it is a simple concept, I find it hard to explain myself so here are some info off the internet:

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glos...Balance_01.htm

http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_white-balance.html

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...te-balance.htm

So what you should do is set something white inside the fish tank and fill up the frame with it. Then manually set your white balance so that the camera adjusts it meter accurately. Recompose the scene without the white object and shoot. This should give you a more accurate color reproduction then using AWB. A caution for using a white reflective object is that it may cause your cameras exposure meter to under expose the scene, making it look darker then it is. To compensate for this set your manual exposure control to 1 or 2 stops ( depending on the white object ) to overexposing the scene.

Another way to control White Balance is to shoot in RAW. Shooting in RAW, your camera will not preselect a specific White Balance for you, but rather shoots the scene as it sees it. Using an editing software such as Nikon Capture you can easily correct the photo to the appropriate White Balance setting. Editing with a RAW software is a lot easier then having to mess around with Levels and Curves in Photoshop.

Another tip is to shooting close up macros with an aperature of around f/8 or f/11. Using f/8 or f/11 the whole macro object will be relatively sharp but you might need a tripod as the shutter exposure can get low resulting in a blurred image.

If you try shooting with an aperature value of f/2.8, you can increase your shutter speed, therefore you can hand hold your camera; however the focus distance is very shallow and you may only have a sliver of the macro image in focus. Luckily this is a digital world and it is cheap to erase and try again.

Because you are shooting through water and water magnifies, you need to shoot straight on perpendicular to the object or else you will get a horrible magnifying effect. Make sure that your lens is positioned as close to to object as possible to help reduce magnification. You can also move the object closer to the front of the fish tank so that you are not shooting through much water. Hope some of these tips will help.
________
Suzuki RV125

[Delphinus]

Just adding a link, I found this page on presetting the white balance on the Nikon D70s:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CWry

Question, what are folks using for setting white balance? Piece of acrylic, or ... ?

[Gooly001]

Here are some of my macros shot with f/2.8. Note the limited Depth of Field and some unsharpness as most were shot hand held. Another thing to notice is that with the shallow depth of field, the background is now pitch black because of the faster shutter speed, there is not enough time for the camera to get full exposure on the background therefore rendering it black.


















________
free drupal themes

[Jason McK]

Originally Posted by R.A.D.

Here are some of my macros shot with f/2.8. Note the limited Depth of Field and some unsharpness as most were shot hand held.

Marco Lenses by nature have very narrow depth of field. it's the physics of the Lens elements. The only way to increase depth of field is to decrease magnification.

Cool shots BTW
J

[Gooly001]

It's not the magnification but rather the ability of the macro lens to focus down to a few inches. Most conventional lenses have a minimum focus distance of 2-4 feet. A true macro lens will allow the user to focus within inches sometimes mm to the object. Although this may seem like an increase in magnification because you are focusing so close it is rather the macro lenses nature to focus down so tight and that is why they cost so much. If I selected a higher aperture on the lens ie f/16-f/22 and had enough lighting, the result would be a much sharper image that is focused front to back. Most photographers use f/2.8 as a setting when shooting close up is because they want their subject to be sharp but the background to be blurred so that it will not distract the viewer.

True magnification is dependent on the size of the lens that you buy. ie 50mm, 100 mm, 200mm etc..

If I had a 60mm macro and wanted to take a macro shot, I might have to be as close as 1 inch away from my subject. However, if I had a 105mm macro I can now shoot the same image but be further back. Both shots I can select f/2.8 and still get the same blurred and sharpness effect. The only difference is that one lens is magnifying almost twice the other and I can stand further back.
________
dispensaries

[Gooly001]

Delphinus,

Try using a clean piece of white PVC piping. If you find that your image is darker then it seems, set your exposure compensation to +1 EV (exposure value). If this is still too dark then +2 etc....make sure that you don't blow out the rest of the image. In other words, keep an eye on areas with highlights so that they don't appear too bright and compete with the subject that you are photographing.
________
extreme vaporizer review

[Jason McK]

Originally Posted by R.A.D.

It's not the magnification but rather the ability of the macro lens to focus down to a few inches. Most conventional lenses have a minimum focus distance of 2-4 feet. A true macro lens will allow the user to focus within inches sometimes mm to the object. Although this may seem like an increase in magnification because you are focusing so close it is rather the macro lenses nature to focus down so tight and that is why they cost so much. If I selected a higher aperture on the lens ie f/16-f/22 and had enough lighting, the result would be a much sharper image that is focused front to back. Most photographers use f/2.8 as a setting when shooting close up is because they want their subject to be sharp but the background to be blurred so that it will not distract the viewer.

True magnification is dependent on the size of the lens that you buy. ie 50mm, 100 mm, 200mm etc..

If I had a 60mm macro and wanted to take a macro shot, I might have to be as close as 1 inch away from my subject. However, if I had a 105mm macro I can now shoot the same image but be further back. Both shots I can select f/2.8 and still get the same blurred and sharpness effect. The only difference is that one lens is magnifying almost twice the other and I can stand further back.

I have to disagree the lens elements in the marco lens completely change the rules of normal lenses. Depth of field is dependent on the positioning of the lens elements and not f-stop. stopping down to f22 from f2.8 will gain you millimetres of depth of field where as minor decreases of magnification will gain you centimetres.

Anyway. This is usually not a problem with Tank photography as you are never mm from you subject.

Depth of Field Information

J

[Gooly001]

Jason,

This was extracted from the web link that you posted:

"Effect of f-number

For a given subject framing, the DOF is controlled by the lens f-number. Increasing the f-number (reducing the aperture diameter) increases the DOF; however, it also reduces the amount of light transmitted, and increases diffraction, placing a practical limit on the extent to which the aperture size may be reduced. Motion pictures make only limited use of this control; to produce a consistent image quality from shot to shot, cinematographers usually choose a single aperture setting for interiors and another for exteriors, and adjust exposure through the use of camera filters or light levels. Aperture settings are adjusted more frequently in still photography, where variations in depth of field are used to produce a variety of special effects."


Here is another link to close up photography, please read halfway down the article re: DOF

http://www.tcinternet.net/users/nmol...hotography.htm

http://www.shutterfreaks.com/Tips/ControllingDOF.html
________
vapir oxygen vaporizer

[Gooly001]

Originally Posted by Jason McK

I have to disagree the lens elements in the marco lens completely change the rules of normal lenses. Depth of field is dependent on the positioning of the lens elements and not f-stop. stopping down to f22 from f2.8 will gain you millimetres of depth of field where as minor decreases of magnification will gain you centimetres.

Anyway. This is usually not a problem with Tank photography as you are never mm from you subject.

Depth of Field Information

J

From your qoute above, you stated that DOF is dependent on the position of the lens element and NOT f-stop.

What lens element are you talking about? The front lens element or the rear element that is closest to the film/sensor plane? In a camera lens, there are many elements that make up the construction of the lens. So to clarify your point, which lens element are you talking about that needs to be positioned so that you can control DOF. If a lens element is fixed to one postion in the lens, does that mean that the lens has only one distance setting for DOF?

Although, the DOF is limited in your photo trials, my point is that DOF can be controlled through aperature. I really don't know why you are adament that this is wrong. You've challenged what I posted and was proven incorrect. Please accept this and let's move on to helping people take photographs. 'Nuff said.

Cheers,
________
weed news

[Jason McK]

Originally Posted by R.A.D.

R.A.D could you take this shot again with a range of f-stops.

Sorry I do not currently have a DSLR I do have 7 film cameras but that will take way to long to perform the experiment.

J