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Settings for LED lights?


ecogirl22

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(optimus T 3mp camera phone no flash) what setting should i use to take photos of my nano w/ LEDs, the top shelf keeps washing out white. I have basic settings like auto focus, brightness, outdoor/sport/ macro etc.

 

thanks

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sorry to say your not gonna get much. The sensor is so limited in camera phones with dynamic range and such your not gonna get a real good pic of tank with LEDS or any light.

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sorry to say your not gonna get much. The sensor is so limited in camera phones with dynamic range and such your not gonna get a real good pic of tank with LEDS or any light.

 

Lies! Lol

 

Depends on how much effort you put into it. Adjusting your leds, adjusting camera phone exposure and white balance. Then after edit

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Lies! Lol

 

Depends on how much effort you put into it. Adjusting your leds, adjusting camera phone exposure and white balance. Then after edit

 

so what's the desired exposure and white balance? I have a macro setting(and macro lens), Focus isn't a problem, It focuses fine (as long as pumps are off;) I'm trying to figure out how to stop the top shelf from whiting out. I just don't know if I should put it darker, or brighter....In which direction do you adjust the white balance? Which program do you use to after edit and which setting do you change to make it better:) these are really BASIC questions, but i need somewhere to start. There's so many options! I'm not looking for pro results with a crappy phone, i just want something as good as possible with what i have. I'm inspired by one member's iphone 4 photography, If i could even get half that good i'd be happy as a clam:)

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your not going to stop that..its doesnt have the dynamic range..even DSLR can have issues with this due to blowing highlights trying to get all exposed properly..the only way your going to fix it is in something like Photoshop or maybe Gimp since thats free and can adjust the levels of highlights, and such. I am sorry to say its a camera phone so dont get excited for anything spectacular.

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your not going to stop that..its doesnt have the dynamic range..even DSLR can have issues with this due to blowing highlights trying to get all exposed properly..the only way your going to fix it is in something like Photoshop or maybe Gimp since thats free and can adjust the levels of highlights, and such. I am sorry to say its a camera phone so dont get excited for anything spectacular.

 

 

thanks for pointing me towards Gimp, I'll download that and play around, see what i can do.

 

thanks:)

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I use Photoshop cs5

 

You wanna take the exposure and white balance down. Then adjust highlights and shadows . An android app that does this is Camera FX.

 

Here are some android shots.

TheRise.jpg

Helfrich-1.jpg

Tankgazer.jpg

Spathulata1.jpg

montipora.jpg

IMG_20120304_191707.jpg

IMG_20120304_192252.jpg

IMG_20120215_185705.jpg

IMG_20120215_190136.jpg

IMG_20120214_195539.jpg

 

Just play around and you can get some good ones

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you beat me to it ii came here to also say camera fx for android is great!

 

allright I'll download that too. great pics! I'd be super happy with pics like those:) Peeves me when people say you can't get any good pics with a phone. I know you can-- I'VE SEEN THEM. sure, they're not as good a a pro pic, but i just want something to share with people, not something to blow up poster size and frame:)

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skulls_and_sparrows

LED's are notriuos for messing with white balance...it causes massive havic, simply because LED set ups, use many different colored LED's, with them blending after the light has left the LED itself...our eyes, can adjust for this, and it does for the most part (execept you will hear, people say with some LED set ups, that you can see blue, red, white, green shimmer lines...depending on leds they are using...also known as the diso ball effect)...our camers pic up the different leds and does mix them together, so they have different color temps and that totally messes with the white balance...

 

I can tell you I dread walking into a wedding, and they have massive crazy lighting all over the place and on the dance floor...it really makes it tough...so its no different for our tanks...

 

With digital, its usually always better to under expose slightly and adjust up, instead of over expose...but like someone else mentioned, our lights are so bright, that cameras can not handle the range like our eyes can...so your going to get blown hight lights and blacked out area shadows...

 

You can also also do some adjusting with a program like other said, but you are very, very limited in what you can do with it...there is just not much play in a jpeg out of a pro camera, let alone a digital camera...

 

But the most I can say is practice, practice and practice...try different settings and take the same photo many times with the different settings and see what you get, and make note of what seemed to work and did not...

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LED's are notriuos for messing with white balance...it causes massive havic, simply because LED set ups, use many different colored LED's, with them blending after the light has left the LED itself...our eyes, can adjust for this, and it does for the most part (execept you will hear, people say with some LED set ups, that you can see blue, red, white, green shimmer lines...depending on leds they are using...also known as the diso ball effect)...our camers pic up the different leds and does mix them together, so they have different color temps and that totally messes with the white balance...

 

I can tell you I dread walking into a wedding, and they have massive crazy lighting all over the place and on the dance floor...it really makes it tough...so its no different for our tanks...

 

With digital, its usually always better to under expose slightly and adjust up, instead of over expose...but like someone else mentioned, our lights are so bright, that cameras can not handle the range like our eyes can...so your going to get blown hight lights and blacked out area shadows...

 

You can also also do some adjusting with a program like other said, but you are very, very limited in what you can do with it...there is just not much play in a jpeg out of a pro camera, let alone a digital camera...

 

But the most I can say is practice, practice and practice...try different settings and take the same photo many times with the different settings and see what you get, and make note of what seemed to work and did not...

that will increase the level of noise. I ALWAYS shoot to the right with my tank and so I can drop the exposure some as that will hide some of the noise..if you go the other way your going to increase the noise level in the photo. its a camera phone person is using so they should just glad they can get something from it.

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I downloaded Camera360 which was highly rated. Here's pics with my 3 mp droid phone w/o app and with app...post-21395-1332187481_thumb.jpgpost-21395-1332187807_thumb.jpg

 

a small improvement:) it took it in lower resolution but i should be able to change that. Plus i put 60 deg lenses on 4 leds so the light was much much brighter in the second pic, but still looks less washed out then the first. I'll keep experimenting:)

 

thanks for all the tips. :D

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I downloaded Camera360 which was highly rated. Here's pics with my 3 mp droid phone w/o app and with app...post-21395-1332187481_thumb.jpgpost-21395-1332187807_thumb.jpg

 

a small improvement:) it took it in lower resolution but i should be able to change that. Plus i put 60 deg lenses on 4 leds so the light was much much brighter in the second pic, but still looks less washed out then the first. I'll keep experimenting:)

 

thanks for all the tips. :D

 

 

Looks like it just increases the contrast

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  • 2 weeks later...
skulls_and_sparrows
that will increase the level of noise. I ALWAYS shoot to the right with my tank and so I can drop the exposure some as that will hide some of the noise..if you go the other way your going to increase the noise level in the photo. its a camera phone person is using so they should just glad they can get something from it.

 

the only way you increase noise is raising iso, when you over expose you lose highlights that can not be recovered. the only time you see noise from raising an underexposed image up 1.5+ stops (which is the software finding light in a sense raising the iso with the program), from a minute change you wont see it, sorry. i know your shooting canon, but im.pretty sure to right you are underexposing, but again canon is funky to me, so that may be the opposite.

 

ask anyone who knows what they are doing when shooting digital, under exposing is way better then over exposing, eslecially in our tanks with the light so bright.

 

honestly, nailing expsoure in camera is the most ideal situation.

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the only way you increase noise is raising iso, when you over expose you lose highlights that can not be recovered. the only time you see noise from raising an underexposed image up 1.5+ stops (which is the software finding light in a sense raising the iso with the program), from a minute change you wont see it, sorry. i know your shooting canon, but im.pretty sure to right you are underexposing, but again canon is funky to me, so that may be the opposite.

 

ask anyone who knows what they are doing when shooting digital, under exposing is way better then over exposing, eslecially in our tanks with the light so bright.

 

honestly, nailing expsoure in camera is the most ideal situation.

I don't know where you get your info, but that's incorrect. That number regarding 1.5+ stops is absolute crap. It depends on the photo itself, your ability to sense the noise, and the camera. I use the overexpose then tone it down in post all the time with good results.

I will say you do lose some dynamic range (obviously) when you use that method.

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the only way you increase noise is raising iso, when you over expose you lose highlights that can not be recovered. the only time you see noise from raising an underexposed image up 1.5+ stops (which is the software finding light in a sense raising the iso with the program), from a minute change you wont see it, sorry. i know your shooting canon, but im.pretty sure to right you are underexposing, but again canon is funky to me, so that may be the opposite.

 

ask anyone who knows what they are doing when shooting digital, under exposing is way better then over exposing, eslecially in our tanks with the light so bright.

 

honestly, nailing expsoure in camera is the most ideal situation.

What..Where in the world do you get the info saying..if you under expose and then bump exposure in post will not make more noise..that will absolutely make more noise show up. You can MASK the noise and not be as noticeable if you shoot the the RIGHT as in overexpose a little so you can bring it back down in post which will hide some noise. ISO is NOT the only thing that will make more noise. who underexposes 1.5stops anyway LORD..when i shoot to overexpose i am over exposing like +.3 not even a half stop. I think you need to learn what your talking about. When you shoot RAW your not loosing all your info like a JPEG which makes me believe you are shooting in jpeg

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What..Where in the world do you get the info saying..if you under expose and then bump exposure in post will not make more noise..that will absolutely make more noise show up. You can MASK the noise and not be as noticeable if you shoot the the RIGHT as in overexpose a little so you can bring it back down in post which will hide some noise. ISO is NOT the only thing that will make more noise. who underexposes 1.5stops anyway LORD..when i shoot to overexpose i am over exposing like +.3 not even a half stop. I think you need to learn what your talking about. When you shoot RAW your not loosing all your info like a JPEG which makes me believe you are shooting in jpeg

 

+1 shooting in JPEG sucks however this thread is talking about CELL phone pictures so both of your guys posts really don't apply as androids don't have the option to adjust partial stops.

 

More android pictures?!

 

IMG_20120402_192258.jpg

Acan.jpg

fireballmaxi.jpg

IMG_20120328_193742.jpg

GreenAcropora1.jpg

IMG_20120402_192335.jpg

LightMeRight.jpg

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sure it does..I can still set my exposure over a little on my droid..granted it wont save many details in highlights and shadows like a RAW file but you can still pull back the exposure some in post and mask a little of the noise.

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True but we are talking full stops on android...even on the new ICS. However ICS does HDR 1± stop shots

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F that stupid HDR BS..99% people who do it even with a DSLR do it WRONG and looks like garbage. Id never over expose or under expose a full stop anyway.

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