Troubles with Nikon D70s SLR

[Renegade]

This is kinda off topic however it does relate. I'm looking for someone local to connect with that has a D70s SLR to share some tips and tricks taking photo's of tanks with. I also think there may be something wrong with how my camera is metering light and i wanted to compare with someone who has the same camera.

Anyways shoot me a PM maybe we can both learn something new.

Kyle

[Delphinus]

I have the same camera, but I guess we're not local to each other. Check with Raf or Diana though, I think they shoot with that model as well and they'd be closer.

Tank photography is tricky - I used to think I was OK at photography until I started trying to shoot my tanks. Now I realize I'm horrible at it. Anything non tank related seems to go well though. I guess the lighting really throws things off.

A lot depends on what glass you're using too. What lens are you using? If not doing so already you should probably consider shooting with a macro lens and not bother with anything else.

When I was shooting with my 35mm I had a 90mm macro lens and it worked out well. Moving to a DSLR body though puts a 1.5x magnifier on your focal lens so it became the equivalent of a 135mm. Which is great if you want a photo of maybe nostril on a snail but not so good if you want a picture of a whole animal. I found I had to step so far back from the tank to fit a fish it kind of defeated the purpose of a macro lens.

After reading this thread, http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...d.php?t=36153&
.. I started saving up for the F2.8 60mm Macro lens. Found a good deal on ebay. I have to say, this is a great lens. It's more or less the standard micro (Nikon's term for macro) lens that Nikon offers nowadays. Highly recommend looking into this lens (if you're not using it already that is ).

Lastly, practise is underrated Seriously, I find I'll shoot some 90-100 pictures in a sitting and keep maybe about 4. I guess I need those tips too, but in the meantime, shoot lots and vary it up and see what works well.

Anyhow good luck, hope some of this helps.

[Jason McK]

the biggest problem with Tank photography is the multipule colour temperatures in your tank. Actinics through a lot of light into the tank, but most meters do not read that colour temp. Try turning off your actinics.
Also the dinamic range of digital is far narrower that say Film. So with such stronge lighting and high contrast it is impossible to capture white sand and high colour definision in corals. there is just to great a difference in light reflectance. Basically if you meter your sand you get (for example) f 2.8 @ 1/1000sec. Then meter the coral you are attempting to capture. it will meter at f2.8 @ 1/60sec for example. this range is too high. Your best bet is to switch to spot metering and meter your subject only and let the rest fall where is may.
What you can also do is shoot raw. This will give you 16bit file to play with (jpg is only 8bit) you will then need to use a RAW formate tool like Adobe Lightroom or what ever came with your camera. you can then manipulate the 16bits of data into the 8 bits you need to make the best picture you can.
Hope this helps

J

[michika]

Tagging along. I also have a Nikon, but its a D40x and not a D70. However I'm sure there is tons to learn either way.

Have you thought of checking any books out of the library on the subject?

[skylord]

I also have the D40X and have decided the only way to fix this is to spend even more money and get a F2.8 60mm Macro. Spending more money always seems to be the cure.

Scott

[Slick Fork]

I got a Sony Alpha 100 DSLR and from the 2 or 3 days I've had to play around with it I'll second the recommendation for spot metering. Is RAW the preferred format for shooting?

[Jason McK]

I would say for day to day shooting RAW is unnesassary. the biggest problem with RAW are the tools Light 'DarkRoom' are just a difficult to use as Photoshop. but with practice you will greatly improve your pictures.
If you plan on printing your pictures YES Shoot RAW.

When buying Macro lenses be aware of Focus/Magnification. Some Macro lenses have Maxinum limits on focus.

J

[Slick Fork]

Just for comparison and to demonstrate spot metering vs pattern metering...

This first shot is using the pattern metering, regular jpeg "macro" mode. In this picture it looks like it metered more for the background and overexposed the coral. It was also one of the first 20 pictures I took with the camera so there are probably a couple of dumb mistakes in there!



Here's a shot I took of the same coral a day or so later using the spot metering mode and the raw output. No Macro lense, just the 18-70mm. I didn't do anything to the picture, just straight converted it into a jpeg and it turned out pretty good.

[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 ... ?