Anyone fimilar with the Nikon D40?

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BCT182

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Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,387
Location
Sumner WA
I have had this stupid SLR for over a year and never have learned how to take an aquarium photo.

What settings should I be shooting with?

The only lense I have is the on the came with it. 18-55mm

Nothing fancy like Brie does, I just want to point and shoot and have the colors look ok.
 
Hey Brett, my son T shoots with a D80, you should email him man.

Don't over think it, get close, focus manually, hold your breath, don't move and shoot your frames. You have a tripod? At least we'll get to see your tank finally!
 
Brett, if the main problem you're having is the colors, you probably need to custom white balance, to your tank's lighting. To do this, you'll need to find your custom white balance settings. You'll also need to take a picture of something completely white, or an 18% gray scale card. You'll put the white or gray card in your tank, under your lighting, and take a focused picture of it. The card needs to take up most of the picture. Then you'll custom white balance to that picture. I usually use a styrofoam picnic type plate.

As for other settings, what settings are you trying? What results are you getting? Are you mainly having trouble with pics of fish or of corals?
 
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i am no expert but i have been trying to learn the d80 as well, Tamarindthai aka dang told me to set the f-stop to 7.1 and the iso to 125. then do your white balance stuff

I will say also that when dang shoots a photo his photos are darker than you might think and then he opens them in photoshop and adjust brightness there.

I have got to the point were i can shoot good photos that way but its no were near what brie and dang are capable of with my stock lens.

good luck
 
The aperture setting (f-stop), shutter speed and ISO will all be dependant on your lighting, area in tank being shot, brightness of fish or coral, speed fish is moving...etc. So many different variables need to be taken into effect. With fish, you need a fast shutter speed, to avoid blur. With a faster shutter speed, you need a wider aperture setting (lower F-stop) in order to still get adequate lighting. None of these settings will effect white balance.

Your camera will have a graph to help you determine if you're getting the proper amount of available light. Usually, the center of the line is optimal "exposure." If you're exposure is to the left of center, you need more light, so you'd need to slow down your shutter, open up your aperture or raise your ISO setting. The opposite steps would decrease available light, if you were to right of center. The use of the Histogram will also give you a lot of available exposure information.

The key is to learn how Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO all work, in relationship to one another and to control amount of light and depth of field. After learning what all these settings mean, it's a matter of "fiddling" with your camera, taking pictures with lots of different adjustments, and seeing how those adjustments effect the final outcome.
 
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wow, guys sounds like reef photography is a hobby in itself. Thanks for the advice everyone. Im home sick today, so I think I'll take some shots.
 
When you figure it out let me know! I have a D40 but have never been able to take consistenly good pictures. One thing I really struggle with is white balance. I've tried to set the white balance by taking a picture of a white plate submerged in the tank but the camera always complains that I am not taking a picture of a white object. Even though my tank lighting isnt nearly as blue as others I think its more blue than the camera expects. I've switched to shooting raw+JPG then I adjust the raw whitebalance on a computer.
 
Brett, I just looked at some of your new pics. Seems like you got the custom white balance figured out!! Some of the pics look like they were taken with a very high ISO setting, which will cause the grainy look. You probably bumped up the ISO due to lower light levels. Or, you're shooting in Auto Mode and the camera automatically did this. Try this:

Shoot in Manual Mode.
ISO 100 or 200
Open your aperture more, smaller Fstop number. Unless you're using higher end lenses (fast lenses) you won't be able to open it up more than about 3.8, but that might be enough for your needs.
Slow down the shutter speed, which will allow more light to hit the sensor. Figure out how slow of a shutter speed you can use, and still get a sharp image. From there, you can adjust lighting with your aperture. Open the aperture (lower Fstop) for more light, Close up the aperture (higher Fstop), for less light.

Keep shooting and posting!!!
 
ok, here is a sample. Actually may be the best photo I have ever taken. This has not be altered in any fashion.



DSC_0330.jpg
 
A few things to mention, get a tripod if you haven't. Lighting in the room also helps. Depending on the mode, you may want to use "A" mode, which is aperture priority. The shutter speed will be automatically adjusted but this will allow you to make some adjustments that auto won't allow, sorta tweak those shots. The only other thing I could suggest later is get a better Lens than the kit lense.
 
Now those are great!! Very well focused, sharp and color looks very accurate! What settings were you using and what camera mode?

I agree, very nice pic.

Looking at the properties of the zoa photo reveals the following metadata.

Mode: Shutter Priority
F-Stop: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/40th
ISO: 200
Exposure: -0.7
Flash: no
 
A few things to mention, get a tripod if you haven't. Lighting in the room also helps. Depending on the mode, you may want to use "A" mode, which is aperture priority. The shutter speed will be automatically adjusted but this will allow you to make some adjustments that auto won't allow, sorta tweak those shots. The only other thing I could suggest later is get a better Lens than the kit lense.

The kit lens that comes with most cameras is good, but I second Scooter that buying a good lens like a macro will take you leaps and bounds ahead.
 
Wow! How could you figure that all out?

I agree, very nice pic.

Looking at the properties of the zoa photo reveals the following metadata.

Mode: Shutter Priority
F-Stop: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/40th
ISO: 200
Exposure: -0.7
Flash: no
 
Wow! How could you figure that all out?

I saved the picture to my computer. Once there I just right clicked on the photo, selected 'Properties' then selected the 'Details" tab. Your camera writes all the settings details to the image file.

I've been peeking at Bire's photos to get an idea of the settings she uses. :)
 

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