3ft Planted photos

In my 3ft Planted gallery. All comments are welcome.

Originally posted by jango
In my 3ft Planted gallery. All comments are welcome.

Wow!! Clear n sharp

Care to share some tips?

Very Excellent photography skills indeed! I was impressed. Which DC U use & how U do it? Pls provide us with some tips.

Nice plant tank and good photography skill.....

Thanks for the generous comments guys...make me paiseh

I'm using Olympus C2100. Been playing with photography for many years but never really good at it. Started taking pics of tanks and aquarium only recently. Do visit my gallery for other photos.

http://www.pbase.com/markb

Some pointers I've learnt when taking aquariums pics:

1. First of all patience and clean tank. Sit in front of the tank and wait for awhile. Let the fishes feel comfortable with your presence and know that you are no threat to them. I find slow movements help and prevent the fish from hiding. Give the tank a wipe to remove fingerprints or smudges or algea, both inside and outside. This will prevent the camera from focusing on the dirt and spoil the pic. Do this in advance to let the dirt settle if any.

2. If possible, cut out all ambient light source - ie window, ceiling light, or TV. The only light should be from the aquarium. This will help prevent reflection. You want to see the fishes in the pics, not the reflection of yourself or the camera or the TV screen right?

3. Did I say clean the tank?

4. When taking macros, set your camera to Macro mode (if available). This is allow your camera to move really close up and still be able to focus properly. If you want even more close-up, you can buy a Close-Up filter (+2 or +4) that is compatible with your camera.

5. No flash. Flash produces harsh, flat and unnatural lighting effects which I don't like. The lighting from the aquarium is bright enough for me.

6. If your camera allows, set the aperture to the smallest F-stop. This will create a shallow depth of field so that your object (fish or shrimp etc) will be sharp while the background blurred. Small f-stop also allows faster shutter speed to prevent blurring due to fish movement or handshake.

7. I prefer auto-focus when using digicam. Manual focusing on digicam sucks...well at least with my cam! :P

8. When auto-focusing, get the focus point to be the eyes of the fish/shrimp. The eyes of your subject is the most important thing in any pictures. It must be sharp. You should do the same when taking pictures of humans too!

9. Move as close as possible. But be careful of the camera banging against the glass though! :P Moving close will allow you to fill the frame with your subject. It will allow more details of the creature you want to show. Moving close also helps reduce the depth of field even more.

Sorry for the longwinded post. Any questions, feel free to ask.

Nice tank setup, and great photos. Checked your webpage, there's one photo of 2 lady (color dressed with black white background), what's the trick???

Originally posted by jango
Thanks for the generous comments guys...make me paiseh

I'm using Olympus C2100. Been playing with photography for many years but never really good at it. Started taking pics of tanks and aquarium only recently. Do visit my gallery for other photos.

http://www.pbase.com/markb

Some pointers I've learnt when taking aquariums pics:

1. First of all patience and clean tank. Sit in front of the tank and wait for awhile. Let the fishes feel comfortable with your presence and know that you are no threat to them. I find slow movements help and prevent the fish from hiding. Give the tank a wipe to remove fingerprints or smudges or algea, both inside and outside. This will prevent the camera from focusing on the dirt and spoil the pic. Do this in advance to let the dirt settle if any.

2. If possible, cut out all ambient light source - ie window, ceiling light, or TV. The only light should be from the aquarium. This will help prevent reflection. You want to see the fishes in the pics, not the reflection of yourself or the camera or the TV screen right?

3. Did I say clean the tank?

4. When taking macros, set your camera to Macro mode (if available). This is allow your camera to move really close up and still be able to focus properly. If you want even more close-up, you can buy a Close-Up filter (+2 or +4) that is compatible with your camera.

5. No flash. Flash produces harsh, flat and unnatural lighting effects which I don't like. The lighting from the aquarium is bright enough for me.

6. If your camera allows, set the aperture to the smallest F-stop. This will create a shallow depth of field so that your object (fish or shrimp etc) will be sharp while the background blurred. Small f-stop also allows faster shutter speed to prevent blurring due to fish movement or handshake.

7. I prefer auto-focus when using digicam. Manual focusing on digicam sucks...well at least with my cam! :P

8. When auto-focusing, get the focus point to be the eyes of the fish/shrimp. The eyes of your subject is the most important thing in any pictures. It must be sharp. You should do the same when taking pictures of humans too!

9. Move as close as possible. But be careful of the camera banging against the glass though! :P Moving close will allow you to fill the frame with your subject. It will allow more details of the creature you want to show. Moving close also helps reduce the depth of field even more.

Sorry for the longwinded post. Any questions, feel free to ask.

Great tips! Thanks for sharing and really appreciate it

Good piece of info....

Originally posted by CDM
Nice tank setup, and great photos. Checked your webpage, there's one photo of 2 lady (color dressed with black white background), what's the trick???

Hi CDM,

Thanks for the compliments. My tank has recently gone back into cycling state after the third week. Water very cloudy and abit yellowish/greenish. I think its both bacteria bloom and abit of green water.

Back to your question - I used Photoshop and the steps below

1. Select the area I want to stay colored. I use Magnetic Lasso Tool to do the selection. This is the most tedious part and determines how the effect will turn out later, so patience is key. After this step, is very easy liao.

2. Inverse the selection - Selection > Inverse. The software now selects the areas that I did not select. This is the portion that I want to change to greyscale, ie black/white.

3. Then select from top menu - Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

4. Tada! Done!

Have fun trying it out!

cheers,

Originally posted by jango
Hi CDM,

Thanks for the compliments. My tank has recently gone back into cycling state after the third week. Water very cloudy and abit yellowish/greenish. I think its both bacteria bloom and abit of green water.

Back to your question - I used Photoshop and the steps below

1. Select the area I want to stay colored. I use Magnetic Lasso Tool to do the selection. This is the most tedious part and determines how the effect will turn out later, so patience is key. After this step, is very easy liao.

2. Inverse the selection - Selection > Inverse. The software now selects the areas that I did not select. This is the portion that I want to change to greyscale, ie black/white.

3. Then select from top menu - Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

4. Tada! Done!

Have fun trying it out!

cheers,

Haha..... ic! I think i did tried that a few years back but couldn't remember how to do it liao