Halp

[tlombardo]

I am stumped. I have read up a ton on taking pictures of aquariums but just can't get anything even close to decent with my dslr. When I try to set my white balance custom everything I take comes out super purple. I have taken pictures of just about everything. took pictures of diff parts of my tank with diff lighting many times, I took pics of a white piece of paper all over the place with different lighting, and I even stuck a white plate in my tank and tried that. Always purple. My tank lighting isn't even that blue compared to some other tanks I have seen in person. anyone know what I may be doing wrong?

 

Thanks

Tony

[xiaoxiy]

Tagging along. I'm having the same issue; in fact, I can't even white-balance a sheet of paper next to my tank because for some reason, my camera thinks the paper is purple.

[Scorched]

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/296235-3-foot-office-nano-mr-aqua-12-gallon-long/?p=4147256

 

Do they look similar to my photos at the bottom of this post?

 

 

Here is how I get the best results with a DSLR and lots of blue LEDs.

 

Do the white pieces of paper WB so that the piece is near the tank but not right under the lights. This will then allow your photos to still have a tiny bit of blue to match how it probably looks to your eye.

 

Go to the menu screen and choose custom WB, it should then prompt you to choose which photo to use, after you choose it exit out of the menu. Then change the mode from auto to custom.

 

A lot of people say shoot RAW! And for 95% of thing I say yes, except for shooting aquariums. The blue is so bright that it messes up the sensor and records some crazy data when its saved. If the photos look correct in your viewfinder after you take them but look bad on the computer, try changing the mode to jpeg, or jpeg+RAW. I bet the jpegs turn out just like your viewfinder looks and you should only have to adjust a tiny amount if its necessary.

[tlombardo]

Yes they do look purple fairly similar to yours. I actually have stalked your thread for a while and read pretty much everything on there pertaining to taking pictures of your tank haha. What i didn't do (I'm an idiot) is set it back to auto to take my baseline after the first one didn't work. I was trying to take pics of the paper with the previous WB setting instead of resetting to default then setting custom again. I set back to auto then took a pic of a white piece of paper a few feet from my tank and it turned out not purple!

 

before

http://s1226.photobucket.com/user/awlomba/media/DSC_02851.jpg.html'>

 

after

http://s1226.photobucket.com/user/awlomba/media/DSC_02871.jpg.html'>

 

I think reading your post made me realize the stupid mistake I was making thanks you are my hero!

[Veng]

Set the camera to shoot raw, then set the white balance on your computer using either lightroom (You should really pick up a copy and learn to use it to get the most out of your camera) or GIMP (free) or canon's DPP (digital photo professional, comes with canon's cameras).