Photography Tips - RTG_Gerry

R

Red Samurai

New Member
Gerry- how do you get the background to go black when you take your pics:confused:. I know you use a flash on top of the aquarium but how many do you use? I am borrowing my uncle's Nikon D90 with sb600 flash overhead and I cant make the fish stand out in the black background like you do. I'm testing this camera out before I buy my own Nikon D90.
I've played around with the aperture and shutterspeed and still cant get that contrast that you get. Is it in the lens? I'm using 18-105mm I also have access to the 70-300mm. I'm so confused!!! Help me Obi wan!
 
Ahhh, young padiwan, you ask for the secret to life.....It's not so easy to explain and it's not the lens.

What size tank are you shooting in?
 
180g - 6x2x2 and I have 2x36 coralife strip lights on top(one on each side)

I have an overflow as well so the top 2-3 inches of the tank has a gap as well.....not sure if this is even relevant:D
 
Red Samurai said:
180g - 6x2x2 and I have 2x36 coralife strip lights on top(one on each side)

Well what's the problem, then? That's the perfect tank size. ;)

I have an overflow as well so the top 2-3 inches of the tank has a gap as well.....not sure if this is even relevant:D
Ahh, I see part of the problem. ;)

I'm at work so I don't have time to write what you need to know. I will leave you with this though, grasshopper.

Imagine the cone of light the flash provides. Imagine where it would be best for you to shoot the fish within that cone of light in order to get the effects you're looking for.

Let me know if that makes any sense to you. ;)


LOL
Click to expand...

edited for colour
 
Ok this got me thinking....I would want the fish right underneath the light.
Just like in the movies where they interrogate the suspect and he is underneath the light and everything else around him is black but him and the chair.....am I right master:confused:
 
You learn well. If you shoot the fish when he is in the wider/deeper part of the cone of light, there will be more light around the subject. That light will illuminate much more than just the fish. The fact that there is a space of 2-3 inches where there is no water forces you to shoot the fish down in the wider part of the cone of light.

Now thats not necessarily a really bad thing. Light is more even, not as harsh and allows you to light a larger fish more evenly, but it does bring into the picture things behind and around the fish.

Shooting the fish directly underneath the flash is not too good either since the lighting will blow out all the highlights and colour, especially on a fish like a young aro with high shine.

This is where you start to manipulate settings on the camera and/or shoot without flash.

I have to prepare supper for my son and I so this is where I have to stop for now.

Can you figure out what's next in the lesson? :D
 
I'm liking this lesson alot:D.....as for what is next ...I dont know:confused: this is my first time ever playing with a DSLR. I'm hoping you're gonna tell me how to set up my camera. Like shutter speed, apeture settings , ISO and whatever else there is LOL....! so I can go and shoot my fish;)
 
Randy, it took me two years of studying the masters and experimenting with different settings and lighting configurations before I could get the results I wanted. I'm very concerned that the next level of training could cause your brain to implode if you are not far along enough in your training. Maybe you need more wax on , wax off....LOL

pm sent.

ps~it's not as easy as telling you my settings and then off you go. You're shooting with a different camera with a different sensor, and a different lens than I shoot with, my friend. I also use 2 and sometimes as many as 4 flashes. ;)
 
Red Samurai said:
I'm liking this lesson alot:D.....as for what is next ...I dont know:confused: this is my first time ever playing with a DSLR. I'm hoping you're gonna tell me how to set up my camera. Like shutter speed, apeture settings , ISO and whatever else there is LOL....! so I can go and shoot my fish;)
Click to expand...

RTG_Gerry said:
Randy, it took me two years of studying the masters and experimenting with different settings and lighting configurations before I could get the results I wanted. I'm very concerned that the next level of training could cause your brain to implode if you are not far along enough in your training. Maybe you need more wax on , wax off....LOL

pm sent.

ps~it's not as easy as telling you my settings and then off you go. You're shooting with a different camera with a different sensor, and a different lens than I shoot with, my friend. I also use 2 and sometimes as many as 4 flashes. ;)
Click to expand...


Oh I am so loving this as I can relate to it. I call it baby camera fever for myself now that I managed to get my hands on a D300, crappy lense true, but boy, oh boy, do I love learning about exposure, ISO, shutter speed, light, the "scratch the top of my head to a bald spot" thingie and so on. :D

What seemed to be working for me is the camera manual. I just took a pencil, and I started going through it. Any unknown "definition" I'd be online researching about it. It's making sense now, sort of ...now :D.

As for lenses, I'm looking for some cheaper ones to start, fixed ones, like 50mm f1.4 or f1.8 from Nikon ...dreaming about the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 wide angle that Gerry is using, but that's once I can claim a little skill with the new toy.

Anyway Randy, start shooting :D
 
What can be really frustrating about the process, is that each setting you can adjust will to some degree affect the influence of the other settings on the image.

In other words, adjusting shutter speed impacts on aperture and adjusting aperture can impact on the effectiveness of a particular shutter speed. Changing the amount of light used will then alter how a particular aperture setting works and will more than likely cause you to alter the shutter speed once again.

Not only that, but the colour of the fish being shot could command different settings than another fish in the next tank. LOL


Randy, here's another quick lesson to help.

Shutter speed is about how quickly the opening to the sensor opens and shuts.

Aperture dictates how open the shutter is. Typically the lower the aperture, ie F2 means the shutter is more open than say F13. Aperture dictates how much light is allowed into the sensor chamber. The tricky thing about aperture is that the less light allowed, the more depth you can get in an image. So if you shot a profile of a fish with an aperture of say F4, the picture will have much more of a 2d/pancake effect on the image than if you were to shoot with an aperture of F20, which would give you much more of a 3d effect. But closing off the amount of light allowed in with such a high aperture setting means you need to increase the amount of light. A lower aperture setting like F5 requires much less light for the sensor to capture good detail.

Always remember that more light = more detail. You cannot see good detail in subdued lighting. A sensor cannot capture good detail in dim lighting.

ISO dictates the sensitivity of the sensor to light. The higher the ISO, the less light required to capture the same image. However, with less light, less detail can be captured and so pics tend to appear very grainy, the higher the ISO setting is. The sensor gives up detail in favour of a brighter image.

So to shoot without flash requires one to typically crank the ISO.

I could slow down the shutter speed to allow more light in, but then the image becomes blurry because the shutter is not fast enough to catch a crisp image of a moving fish. I could decrease the aperture to allow more light in, but I lose the 3d effect and the image takes on that flat/pancake appearance. So if I haven't stated it clearly enough yet, changing each setting alters the way the other settings work.

Also:

Nikons have typically been poor performers using high ISO settings until the D300 and D3 came along. Canons have always been better with high ISO performance until the D300 and D3 came along. The difference was in the sensor used. CCD sensors, the seonsors used in all older nikons up to the D200, do not do well with high ISO. CMOS sensors, the sensors in the canons and the newer nikons do a much better job. The cmos sensor in the D90 is not as good as the cmos sensor in the D300 and D3, but is much better than the old ccd sensors.
 
Oh, and one more thing, all lenses behave differently with the same settings, lol. All lenses have their own individual sweet spots with respect to aperture and detail capture.
 
Gerry- that little lesson on the flash being a cone was surprisingly very helpful. When you brought it up, the first thing that came to mind was the interrogation of suspect. Its like I knew the answer and you just helped me figure it out!
You are right about more training....I want to take baby steps or I think I will get frustrated and hate this DSLR camera. I'm so use to point and shoot camera's with auto settings LOL! Alot of training and more questions in the near future Sensei!

Check out these shots I took just playing around with the camera settings the tank had full lights on.......I'm so close Sensei to getting a shot like yours lol!

fish009.jpg


fish008.jpg


fish001.jpg


I'm not sure what I did here but sure is freaky!
fish002.jpg
 
Looks like the shutter speed was too slow in the last pic. That usually starts when your shutter speed starts to dip lower than around 1/40. But it does look like you're getting the idea.

You do realize you can set the flash power as well, right?
 
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