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Chris' custom 150


Chris!

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The main issue you're having at 1/60 is holding the camera steady.

 

Thats what I said long time ago.... I can't get em focused right lol

 

Atleast I am consistent tho because I have the same problem at 1/200 too lol

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I have a DSLR camera and am horrible at remembering what all the settings mean/do. I just tried to read all this thinking maybe it would help... Nope, I just get more confused...

I'm sorry.

 

Light, because it is essentially a force, works on the rule of squares, square roots, and Inverse of squares.

 

We deal with it the same with reef lighting, same rules.

 

When these basic realities of light(and light sensitive materials) were being systematized by early photographers, they didn't spend a lot of time making it easy to learn.

 

If you approach it intuitively, rather than using the photo vernacular/secret language, I think its easier to understand.

 

And then use.

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Ok starting to make a little sense to me I think.... 1/120 requires half the light 1/60 does to get the same amount of light... is that correct?

1/120 of a second is a shorter time than 1/60. Take one second, cut it into 120 pieces. 1/120 is one piece, 1/60 is two pieces. Which is more?

 

Twice as short, its half the time of 1/60. If the aperture is open for 1/120 of a second, imagine how much light it lets in the camera; just make up a number. Say it lets in 10 amount of light.

 

Now 1/60 of a second is longer, twice as long as 1/120 of a second.

 

Now you're letting in 20 amount of light.

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1/120 of a second is a shorter time than 1/60. Take one second, cut it into 120 pieces. 1/120 is one piece, 1/60 is two pieces. Which is more?

 

Twice as short, its half the time of 1/60. If the aperture is open for 1/120 of a second, imagine how much light it lets in the camera; just make up a number. Say it lets in 10 amount of light.

 

Now 1/60 of a second is longer, twice as long as 1/120 of a second.

 

Now you're letting in 20 amount of light.

 

Thats weird, I figured it was the other way because to me it seems the 1/200 shots are brighter (which I'd imagine would be due to letting more light in), but your saying they are actually letting in less light then the 1/60 shots? :wacko:

 

So to sum it up.... Photography is confusing lol

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If the lighting stays the same, yes your sensor will get more light at 1/60 than at 1/120. The aperture, analogous with your pupil, is open twice as long, at 1/60 of a second. Twice the light.

 

Your camera goes up into the seconds, most likely 30 seconds.

 

Do an experiment, all Manual mode.

 

1) Take a normally lit room, night is better.

2) Set your ISO to 100.

3) Set your aperture to f/16.

4) Use a tripod, or steady the camera well.

5) Take a photo of a door (whatever) at 1/2 second.

6) Take a photo of the door at 1 second.

7) Take a photo of the door at 2 seconds.

8) If they are all too black to see difference, change to f/11, repeat 5 through 7.

 

Examine your results.

 

Ps, stop me at any time I start to bore you. Or you want to drop this subject.

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If the lighting stays the same, yes your sensor will get more light at 1/60 than at 1/120.

 

Ok so why do the shots at 1/200 seem brighter then at 1/60 this is what is confusing me the most... or are my skills just that screwy that I am making them ass backwards? lol

 

 

 

Your camera goes up into the seconds, most likely 30 seconds.

 

Do an experiment, all Manual mode.

 

1) Take a normally lit room, night is better.

2) Set your ISO to 100.

3) Set your aperture to f/16.

4) Use a tripod, or steady the camera well.

5) Take a photo of a door (whatever) at 1/2 second.

6) Take a photo of the door at 1 second.

7) Take a photo of the door at 2 seconds.

8) If they are all too black to see difference, change to f/11, repeat 5 through 7.

 

Examine your results.

 

Ps, stop me at any time I start to bore you. Or you want to drop this subject.

 

Flash on or off....

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So to sum it up.... Photography is confusing lol

The language and the abbreviations are most confusing. "Stop up, stop down, Fthis Fthat".It becomes easier when you start to get what you're really doing without all the photography specific language. I'm not using it intentionally, as you notice.

 

Ok so why do the shots at 1/200 seem brighter then at 1/60 this is what is confusing me the most... or are my skills just that screwy that I am making them ass backwards? lol Flash on or off....

No flash. That will totally mess with the experiment.Turn it off.

 

Ok so why do the shots at 1/200 seem brighter then at 1/60 this is what is confusing me the most... or are my skills just that screwy that I am making them ass backwards? lol

I'm surprised your getting your results in Manual without knowing how to shoot in Manual. If you were using flash, that will skew the light you are working with.We'll do flash later. It may explain why you're getting brighter pics at 1/120 than 1/60.
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The language and the abbreviations are most confusing. "Stop up, stop down, Fthis Fthat".It becomes easier when you start to get what you're really doing without all the photography specific language. I'm not using it intentionally, as you notice.

 

F this is the part I understand most LOL

 

No flash. That will totally mess with the experiment.Turn it off.

 

Thats what I figured but wanted to check.... I just did it with both f16 and f11 and they are all the same level of black... but the room is pretty much black as well.... should I turn a light on?

 

I'm surprised your getting your results in Manual without knowing how to shoot in Manual. If you were using flash, that will skew the light you are working with.We'll do flash later. It may explain why you're getting brighter pics at 1/120 than 1/60.

 

I've just been messing with the dials until I get something I like, then moving it to change something else until I like it better and so on LOL But yeah I always use flash, if not the pics are BLUUUUUEEEEE.

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Ya, turn a light on in the room. Go to f8.

 

I just want you to see the effect of fraction of seconds to a second, to two seconds. The relative light of each to each other.

 

 

Whats your lighting over your tank? LEDs or tubes? If LEDs, then just turn blue down, white up.

 

Or

Or,

 

Get a 12" clamp on brooder reflector and a warm/cool white CFL tube bulb. Use that to over power the blue. You can mess with color balance all day long, too. But this ghetto reef studio light will most definitely fix the blue for you. Might wreck havoc with coral coloration, though.

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Ya, turn a light on in the room. Go to f8.

 

I just want you to see the effect of fraction of seconds to a second, to two seconds. The relative light of each to each other.

 

its crazy how such a simple little setting makes such a difference. At 1/2 it was quite dark but 2 was considerably brighter.

 

Whats your lighting over your tank? LEDs or tubes?

 

Full LED, blue dominated lol

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Maybe this gif will help explain Aperture. Smaller the number, the less is in focus.

 

Y285ZCB.gif

 

Choose how much you want in focus (aperture / f-stop) and then adjust the shutter speed and ISO to make the exposure work. I'd recommend nothing slower than 1/125 or 1/250. If it's too dark then bump the ISO.

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Hey Chris!

Good looking tank :) And you got some really nice corals in there too!!!

 

I have the same camera as you, and while it is an "entry level camera" I can assure you that it is quite capable of taking great photos. The lens you're using should also be very capable :)

I'm fairly certain the blurry photos you get is due to camera movement. Do you have a tripod? Since you say you get blurry pics at 1/250, I'm guessing it can't really be because of a too long shutter time. A rule of thumb (that doesn't really apply to macro) is that you need a shutter time where the demonimator is greater than your focal length. So your 60mm lens would need at least a shutter speed of 1/60. As you have a camera with a crop lens, that becomes 1/90 (1/125 in practice, if I remember correctly).

For macro, which we move towards when shooting corals, the depth of field becomes so shallow, however, that there is a big risk of moving the camera closer too of further away from the subject after having adjusted focus, which puts the subject out of focus. If you use autofocus, set the focus mode to AF-S and take the shot AS SOON as you get confirmation on focus lock. That way you minimize the risk of moving the camera out of focus from the subject. Take multiple photos, and look at the photos, zoomed in, so you are certain that there is one where focus is good.

 

ISO is an issue, as others have covered, and with the d3100 I have gotten acceptable pictures with ISO800. If you want to do any cropping, I would not go higher than 400, as the noise increases a lot when cropping.

 

Also, your lens goes to f/2.8, right? At the aperture the lens is not at its sharpest, and I would instead go to f/4 (that's what photographers call "stopping down a stop" - closing up the aperture hole so it's area is half as big, thus letting in half the light). This way you get a greater depth of field (more of the photo is in focus) and your lens is a lot sharper this way. Adjust shutter speed and ISO from here, trying to apply the guides above while still letting in the right amount of light (you have a meter at the bottom of your viewfinder, that should be centered to get correct exposure) and I'm fairly sure you'll get a relatively sharp photo.

 

Oh yeah, and turn of flash for now! You can adjust colours in Lightroom. Most of the time the on camera flash is horrible. I've taken a lot of pictures under full actinic lights that looked horrible at first, but after adjustments in LR, colours looked awesome :)

 

Hope this wasn't total giberish.

 

Good luck, Jonas

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Maybe this gif will help explain Aperture. Smaller the number, the less is in focus.

 

Y285ZCB.gif

 

Choose how much you want in focus (aperture / f-stop) and then adjust the shutter speed and ISO to make the exposure work. I'd recommend nothing slower than 1/125 or 1/250. If it's too dark then bump the ISO.

And there is my "AH HA!!" moment!! I find this very helpful!

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I disagree with those who are saying turn up your ISO for these tank shots.

 

The tank is in your home. It's your environment.

 

You can turn up the light. So turn up the light.

 

You're not running your LEDs at 100%, turn them up to that if you need more light.

 

 

 

If you're at a concert, or outside where you can't increase the light, then crank your ISO, of course.

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What is going on in here? :)

 

The D3100 is a fine camera lacking a few features that have nothing to do with taking good pictures. I have a D3100.

 

In a pinch I like to shoot in shutter priority mode and set the shutter speed at 1/100 of a second.

 

Read the manual, I just had to again and I missed a few things. :)

 

Taking photos with a macro lens is tough because the focal plane is very shallow. Use the kit lens that came with the cemera unless you really want macros up close. The kit lens does fine for a lot of shots. Think of the macro lens as for the real artsy fartsy type photos.

 

Use a tripod or use manual focus and press the lens on the glass to make sure you aren't at an angle. Any angle to the glass will create distortion, especially with macros.

 

I was playing around with ISO settings so I could increase the aperture and I was pleasantly surprised how good some pics looked at a very high ISO. That said I usually try and stay at 400 or below, 200 for FTS. This is an uncorrected image (except for white balance) at 1600 ISO. Lens on tank glass, manual focus.

 

FQmxMn.jpg

 

Make NIKON CORPORATION
Mode lNIKON D3100
Aperture f/13.0
Date & Time 2015-01-15 16:11:12.90
Exposure Time 1/100
Focal Length 55.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 82.0 mm)
ISO 1600

f/13.0 is key here to get most of the coral in focus, and this is with the kit lens. With a macro lens f/13 might give me a focal plain of 1/8" if I'm lucky. :)

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I think Farkwar n Ben have done a pretty good job with helping me with the camera settings for the style shooting I prefer to do.... I like the macro shots and can't stand the stock lenses (alot probably because I prefer macro shots other then FTS, and my macro lens is just a better all around piece of glass, which also is a great portrait lens...). Even away from the tank I use my macro lens for most of the pictures of my family and dogs.

 

Anyways to change things up a bit....

 

Phone pics....

 

A little size comparison :lol:

IMAG1238_zpsityyh6da.jpg

IMAG1235_1_zpsziw9s3ax.jpg

 

Those little dogs on the other side of the fence are like 15 lbs maybe and think they are 1015 lb... Little bastards bite the fence whenever any of us are out back like they are gonna do something, my big lug is 115+ and growing still and is a huge baby, she walks up looks at em like they are stupid :D

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She's a good looking young lady. Bet she loves to rough house

 

Thanks, yeah she is definitely a beautiful pup. She actually is super laid back, even playing around she is real gentle and just goes with the flow... which is nice with the little ones. Shes smart so I am sure she would know the difference but it wouldn't be good if she grabbed a rope and either of the boys tried playing tugowar with her like my old pure pit would do with me lol

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Came here expecting to see an amazing tank only and ended up learning about aperture and wanting to get a big dog! beautiful dog sir, i love gentle giants.

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Came here expecting to see an amazing tank only and ended up learning about aperture and wanting to get a big dog!

 

Thanks :) Definitely alot of smart people here with knowledge on all sorts of subjects.

 

beautiful dog sir, i love gentle giants.

 

Thank you, she is awesome all around :) Great with the kids, smart enough to distinguish between a threat and friends, the only things that suck are the food bill, and the bombs she leaves in the yard... but I knew both things and fully expected them going into it lol

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Nice capture of the Kole mouthing the rock

 

Thanks I used Bens advice with the fish and set the shutter priority to 1/250 and it worked really nice and got some good shots of it finally :)

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