kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

Originally Posted by mseepman

How is it that you get such amazing shots...you can't tell that they are through water...do you have to do a lot of editing afterwards? What camera and lens combo do you use?

I don't do tonnes of editing no. I have found the trick to be..

1. Shoot through the glass as perpendicular to the glass as possible.
2. Make sure glass is wicked clean on both sides.
3. Turn off powerheads to limit motion of polyps and debris (unless you have a camera that can shoot at 1/500th of a second)
4. I sometimes use a tripod (unless you can shoot at 1/500th of a second).

I use a Canon 5D Mark II or Canon 40D or Olympus Tough 6000 (underwater camera). My lens of choice for photographing just about anything in the tank is a Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens (very sharp lens).

Editing consists of all or a subset of the following tasks.

1. Sharpening (if needed)
2. Desaturate image (if needed due to actinics)
3. Saturate image (if needed, due to halides washing out colours).
4. Adjust white balance if needed

[lastlight]

I found the same thing when I was playing with the macro. Even a slight angle can make focusing/getting a sharp shot tough. More so with a horizonta angle I thought...

[kien]

ya, poor positioning of the lens/camera/subject is the source of many a blurry photo. If the camera is placed at an angle to the glass, the glass will distort the light, resulting in a distorted image. Compounded with that distortion, Automatic Focus sensors often can't properly focus when taking pictures on an angle to the glass. This is also where a tripod really comes in handy.

[Coleus]

Kien, i think your photography company is just an excuse to your wife to get all toys right :-)