Matteo's Nuvo 40 LPS and BTA Reef (TOTM November 2020)

[Matteo]

1 hour ago, Amphrites said:

Dark and crisp can be corrected, blurry-artifacted and bright cannot lol.
However, as a for-instance, here's a shot which simply cannot be fixed - the artifacting is awful and the brightness/gamma are wayyy off from a high-shutter-speed.

Open apature as wide as you can, turn ISO up a little bit, move your WB settings to get the blue out of the way and snap a fast shot. 

 

In editing you should be able to increase brightness and exposure to get the right color and lighting. 

 

Guarantee you if someone gave me their old camera I could get the same pics as mine with the right settings in manual mode. 

 

I personally think all the orange filters and photo light modes are sorta BS and gimmicky. 

 

Photography has been around for ever and if you understand the mechanics of your camera you can get the shot you want. 

 

Honestly considering the interest in this I may make a video using my camera, my brother's Nikon, and my mother's Canon to show it can be done on virtually any model and brand. 

 

 

The only way to get the right pics are in full manual mode with custom settings and post editing software. 

 

Granted, if you know what you're doing your RAW photo should need very little editing. 

 

I ensure all my pics are PC ready and not phone ready. Meaning if you blow them up on your computer screen the quality is still there. Phone cameras don't really do this well. 

[Matteo]

On 12/24/2019 at 10:33 AM, Matteo said:

This is more of just an update FTS so you can see the new Orange Hammer and coral placement. Pics where taken a little while after I stirred the sand bed and turkey bastered the rocks so its a bit cloudy.

 

This is not an "official" FTS

 

Really like where I put the Orange Hammer and the SPS that used to be there. 

 

I also made it brighter for you whiny bitches 😛

Ah that's right. The only thing I did here was turn the brightness up but not much else. 

 

When I take a pic with my camera it looks basically like this on the camera's LED screen

[A.m.P]

Lol, that was taken to be purposefully-irredeemable, granted it was also taken in a low-light setting with a smaller-sensor. A better camera goes a long way.
The iso was at unpleasantly-high levels already =p

[A.m.P]

2 minutes ago, Matteo said:

Ah that's right. The only thing I did here was turn the brightness up but not much else. 

 

When I take a pic with my camera it looks basically like this on the camera's LED screen

Not to be that guy, but that looks similar to the color-correction I did earlier in the thread XD, with the exception of greens being darker and reds shifting a bit more towards violet, I made the mistaken assumption the mushrooms were neon green and not a matte-forest green lol...

[Matteo]

3 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Lol, that was taken to be purposefully-irredeemable, granted it was also taken in a low-light setting with a smaller-sensor. A better camera goes a long way.
The iso was at unpleasantly-high levels already =p

I see I see 👀

[mitten_reef]

2 minutes ago, Matteo said:

I personally think all the orange filters and photo light modes are sorta BS and gimmicky. 

I'd agree on gel filter.  the light's photo mode is no different than adjusting your WB, imo.  instead of correcting it via your in-camera WB logic, you're feeding the camera with the combined spectrum that it can handle - you're effectively WB your light source. 

 

4 minutes ago, Matteo said:

my camera, my brother's Nikon, and my mother's Canon to show it can be done on virtually any model and brand.

this statement would be true, I have no doubt that you could get very similar resulting photos.  BUT you won't have the same settings on each camera.  Because quality of glass, internal/gut components, and even the brand's IP that gets into processing the light captured will no doubt cause some variations in settings - even in RAW file, I'd imagine (BUT I have no clue when it comes to RAW)

 

   

[Matteo]

Just now, Amphrites said:

Not to be that guy, but that looks similar to the color-correction I did earlier in the thread XD, with the exception of greens being darker and reds shifting a bit more towards violet, I made the mistaken assumption the mushrooms were neon green and not a matte-forest green lol...

I don't know how to get this through to guys on this. Feels like talking to a wall honestly. 

 

My tank shots represent actual color and lighting. My mushrooms ARE THAT NEON GREEN. They're no where near forest green by any means. 

 

Do you guys think my photos are fake or that doctored? 

 

Kind of getting annoying really unless I'm misreading you... 

[Matteo]

1 minute ago, mitten_reef said:

I'd agree on gel filter.  the light's photo mode is no different than adjusting your WB, imo.  instead of correcting it via your in-camera WB logic, you're feeding the camera with the combined spectrum that it can handle - you're effectively WB your light source. 

 

this statement would be true, I have no doubt that you could get very similar resulting photos.  BUT you won't have the same settings on each camera.  Because quality of glass, internal/gut components, and even the brand's IP that gets into processing the light captured will no doubt cause some variations in settings - even in RAW file, I'd imagine (BUT I have no clue when it comes to RAW)

 

   

Oh 100%. My point is it can be Done regardless of equipment which some people are blaming... 

[mitten_reef]

8 minutes ago, Matteo said:

Do you guys think my photos are fake or that doctored?

nope, to the contrary, I find your method "illuminating" 😄 At least speaking for myself.

 

There are a lot of steps in getting the visually correct photos.  AND many times I find certain colors still got left behind when 80-90% of the photos look realistic.  I'm just fascinated by the efforts it takes to get to the good photos.  But I then revert to my lazy self, and gave up on trying those steps.   I find myself looking back to this post by Dave every so often as a reference guide when I feel motivated for better photos.  and like I mentioned elsewhere, I had never dabbled with gel filters.  I think the results are unrealistic with them, and not worth a try for me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[A.m.P]

13 minutes ago, Matteo said:

I don't know how to get this through to guys on this. Feels like talking to a wall honestly. 

 

My tank shots represent actual color and lighting. My mushrooms ARE THAT NEON GREEN. They're no where near forest green by any means. 

 

Do you guys think my photos are fake or that doctored? 

 

Kind of getting annoying really unless I'm misreading you... 

You're misreading me, happens allot, I was talking about the edit I did to touch-up brightness earlier-on in the thread. I made the mushrooms neon-trumpet green, which looks pretty odd in hindsight, I also washed out your sps.

So not-knowing exactly what the colors were, and taking like 5-minutes a few pages back, I tried to provide a "brighter" picture for folks of your FTS which turned out like this:

 

Your recent shot looks like this:

 

Notice how the greens are much better looking in the real-shot, I thought the mushrooms were more neon and my shot should have looked more like this:
Although even in this edit, since I originally tried to tone-down the blues, the colors end up too bright and saturated.

 

To be honest I'm just having fun playing around with some photo-editing, not trying to tell your or say you're doing one-thing or another. All I saw was an opportunity to play around with a few nice-looking shots for-fun, and since people were complaining about brightness, I figured I'd give a whirl at it that's all.
 

[Matteo]

3 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

nope, to the contrary, I find your method "illuminating" 😄 At least speaking for myself.

 

There are a lot of steps in getting the visually correct photos.  AND many times I find certain colors still got left behind when 80-90% of the photos look realistic.  I'm just fascinated by the efforts it takes to get to the good photos.  But I then revert to my lazy self, and gave up on trying those steps.   I find myself looking back to this post by Dave every so often as a reference guide when I feel motivated for better photos.  and like I mentioned elsewhere, I had never dabbled with gel filters.  I think the results are unrealistic with them, and not worth a try for me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah gel filters make the tank look too neon in a gross way. I appreciate the compliment and the pun 😂

[Matteo]

2 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

You're misreading me, happens allot, I was talking about the edit I did to touch-up brightness earlier-on in the thread. I made the mushrooms neon-trumpet green, which looks pretty odd in hindsight, I also washed out your sps.

So not-knowing exactly what the colors were, and taking like 5-minutes a few pages back, I tried to provide a "brighter" picture for folks of your FTS which turned out like this:

 

Your recent shot looks like this:

 

Notice how the greens are much better looking in the real-shot, I thought the mushrooms were more neon and my shot should looked more like this:

 

To be honest I'm just having fun playing around with some photo-editing, not trying to tell your or say you're doing one-thing or another. All I saw was an opportunity to play around with a few nice-looking shots for-fun, and since people were complaining about brightness, I figured I'd give a whirl at it, that's all.
 

No worries mate. It just seemed like we were going in circles on it but my bad. 😘

[spectra]

2 hours ago, Matteo said:

No worries mate. It just seemed like we were going in circles on it but my bad. 😘

[Matteo]

18 minutes ago, spectra said:

Is this you while you've been sick? 😂

[second_decimal]

well..that escalated quickly. I think there is a definite difference between the lens filter and digital filters. No lens filter just gave me too much blue and too much brightness. the orange lens filter takes good pics without any additional editing. I don't really fool around with the filters in the camera since if i was serious about "doctoring" images i would use Photoshop and Illustrator to make awesome fonts and make super cool web layouts so all the reef people would be amazed at my awesome tank and my awesomeness in general. 

 

all kidding aside, no matter what shade of green your mushrooms are, the tank looks pretty legit and i hope you are enjoying it everyday. 

 

some pics for reference... Nikon D40 18-55 lens everything is set to auto. 

 

No Filter / no Flash

 

Orange lens / no flash / no edits

 

With filter / with flash

 

With filter / orange lens / in camera color adjustment

 

With filter / orange lens / in camera color adjustment

 

 

[second_decimal]

lol and no matter how hard the adjustments, I don't think I will be able to get close to what your tank looks like anytime soon. 

[Matteo]

25 minutes ago, second_decimal said:

lol and no matter how hard the adjustments, I don't think I will be able to get close to what your tank looks like anytime soon. 

You're tank looks great! 

 

Hmmm maybe I'll try an orange filter for tickles. Is it just a lens cover? Amazon? 

[Matteo]

So my Utter Chaos and Space Chaos have been doing iffy. 

 

Discovered they were covered in Zoa Pox which I just discovered from reading around. 

 

At the moment the rocks are too established and set for me to remove and dip them. So, I decided to very lightly dose the tank with melafix, turn the skimmer off, turkey bastor with hydrogen peroxide on the zoas, and added in some calcium carbonate to raise the alk a bit. 

 

Should hopefully help. Going to grab 10g of water tomorrow and do some light changes throughout the next few days to help with the dosing and nutrient export of any kind. 

 

I think what happened was my heater was sticking and swinging Temps along with a bit of a nitrate boom from feeding reef roids too heavy. 

 

Everything seems stable now, Corals a are a little pissed off but nothing major by any means. 

 

Luckily it's just zoas affected but why does it have to be the most expensive ones in the tank 😭

[Matteo]

I guess this is the CURE

[second_decimal]

6 minutes ago, Matteo said:

You're tank looks great! 

 

Hmmm maybe I'll try an orange filter for tickles. Is it just a lens cover? Amazon? 

lol everytime i turn my head and look at it, i fast forward 12 months and imagine what it will look like lmao.... 

 

the lens cover is a screw on to the main lens. There are a bunch of different varieties and flavors. in general i like to keep a haze lens on at all times (protects the main lens too) but there is one called a polarizing lens as well a magnifying ones and so on. the orange one i use is "A 12" not "O 56" both are orange but different intensity. i guess this is all sort of left over from an analog world where you had to get the picture right the first time..  

[A.m.P]

14 minutes ago, second_decimal said:

lol everytime i turn my head and look at it, i fast forward 12 months and imagine what it will look like lmao.... 

 

the lens cover is a screw on to the main lens. There are a bunch of different varieties and flavors. in general i like to keep a haze lens on at all times (protects the main lens too) but there is one called a polarizing lens as well a magnifying ones and so on. the orange one i use is "A 12" not "O 56" both are orange but different intensity. i guess this is all sort of left over from an analog world where you had to get the picture right the first time..  

You could always just buy some gels and cut them to a size which can fit behind your lenses or within an extension-cap. I use one of the pre-cut filters from these blokes 10-pack.

I don't actually edit my shots, no color correction in the camera-settings, and they're all taken under heavy blues.
I don't care for the commercialized all-in-ones, but gel-filters are really common in photography and cinematography, it's just about finding the right one for your lighting.
The two filters I prefer turn the harsh blue light into a warm lamplight and bring out pretty-much exact color-representation of my animals (for the most part).

The only real issue I have is the noticeable low-light sensor artifacting (Noise).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[second_decimal]

lol sorry to hijack @Matteo. its always the most expensive ones that are the most sensitive. You think temp swings and nitrates made them susceptible? did any others get it too? Good luck with treatment.

 

[second_decimal]

@Amphrites I try to only buy the Japanese ones. I'm sure there is a difference to a lens manufactured to Japanese specs by the Japanese vs. a gel filter although I could be wrong and its more like a car. it gets you there no matter who made it. 

[A.m.P]

46 minutes ago, second_decimal said:

@Amphrites I try to only buy the Japanese ones. I'm sure there is a difference to a lens manufactured to Japanese specs by the Japanese vs. a gel filter although I could be wrong and its more like a car. it gets you there no matter who made it. 

Oh yeah there's definitely a difference, just not really much of one to people doing things at a hobby-level. Gel-filters are mostly used for lighting directly and not over or on lenses, so their clarity isn't always perfect, they also scratch easily. But hey, they also don't cost a few hundred bucks plus downtime for experimentation XD

With a solid camera you don't really need a filter honestly and the shots here look great, just figured I'd drop my .02, although I didn't mean to further hijack things >_> 

 

Sorry about that, I hope the treatment sorts out the issues with your zoa's.

[second_decimal]

just so i understand clearly, you dosed the whole system with Melafix or with Foran 2? Either way, kudos, that's pretty brave. Can you share dilution or dosage you came up with?