Let me see your blue backgrounds

[Tigahboy]

I am nocturnal. I sleep mostly during the day. And thank you for the constructive response...although I still can't do that on my camera (I've searched the manual many times). oh well.

[EtOH_is_good]

you can't increase exposure time on your camera in manual mode? what's the camera brand?

[Tigahboy]

Here's my camera (I thought it looked really cool and was perfect for simple day-to-day use...but never anticipated reef picture-taking):

 

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_review...s/sony_u20.html

 

It's all about presets...very limited # of presets that I have played around w/ a lot, and yet no real results. I just end up using the auto-mode for everything.

[Tigahboy]

Mind you, I'm no photographer and half the time I don't know what I'm doing. hahaa. so an obvious solution could be right under my nose. Last year was the first time I ever used a digitial camera, and it's been pretty limited to just my Sony.

[EtOH_is_good]

omg, it's just a digital point and shoot. no wonder you can't get a better pic with the black background. oh well, you just need gilman up to take pics of your tank. btw, your arcans really rock. i'll be in town the week before x-mas. maybe need to check out your tank in real life. i'll even bring my canon a70 digital camera.

[Tigahboy]

thanks. you are welcome to do so. I much prefer back-slappins in real life anyway. haha. and a mini-photoshoot would be much appreciated. heheh.

[EtOH_is_good]

got my undergrad from ucla in late 80s/early 90s. any decent lfs on the westside that i need to check out? trying to load up chat on my computer right now, but my computer refuses to accept.

[Tigahboy]

the chat is operational 24-7? thought it was only at the scheduled times. hahah.. There's so much to learn about this site. I didn't even realize that we had a FAQ section until a couple of weeks ago.

 

There's a few good ones I can point you to around UCLA...well....not realy close to UCLA. more like 15-40 miles away from UCLA. haha. I've only been to about 7 LFS's so far (I'm actually a bay area native and down here for school). 4 of them closest to UCLA is dismissal to say the least. Jeff's has been my favorite thus far. Tong's is cool too, but I hear mixed reviews about pricing and customer service. But I need to head down to VMA in San Diego. I keep hearing good things about their stock.

 

A lot of my purchases are also from local reef-central or nano-reef folks.

[Tigahboy]

I just went in there...15ppl. nobody chatting. so i left.

[EtOH_is_good]

haha. been to all those mentioned already. yes even vma, where i got my blasto from. a little over 2 hrs, to vma from sgv. they had a nice selection of blastos and elegance when i was there late oct. pm nanoreefin for updates at the store. i meet him while in the store while i was there. didn't see any arcans. oh and they open after 12pm, so don't go early. my cuz, may have some more westside recommendations because he's also a bruin now. over t-day, we cruised lfs stores. we're so cool

[Tigahboy]

nice...any recommendations would be welcomed...especially for "harder to find" stuff. hahah. But maybe I should be saving some money for my upgrade or a better camera...haha. i got my priorities all mixed up.

[Travis]

Here's a better shot of my tank

 

[Tigahboy]

that looks vaguely familiar....oh yeah. isnt that the same pic in your avatar? hehe...i already mentioned this, but you got some nice aquascaping going on.

 

Is your blue background painted?

[Travis]

Yes, the background is painted, I used Krylon Fusion Spray-Paint, works great.

 

HTH

[MattGecko]

Dirty blue plexiglass back

[DarkXerox]

Hey Tigah, I think the reason why it looks so different is because the white wall you have behind there is reflecting a lot of the light. Also if you really want to take some good pictures, you're gonna need a macro lens.

 

Tripods are also pretty useful and inexpensive and it doesnt hurt to use the timer cause just like a sniper, your heartbeat can mess up the shot heh.

 

Heres one of a green bali slimer I took at the LFS I worked at this summer. The shutter speed was really fast, so it looks dark, and I could have done better with a different aperture size but I was impatient. (Keep in mind I had no idea wtf this meant before I spent the day doing this) The Camera is a Canon EOS 10D 6.3 MP SLR with a Macro lens and a tripod. The picture is gonna get red-xed soon since the hosting service only allows so much but here goes:

 

 

This tank has a clear back with like brown particle board behind it hiding the crash tank lol, but its so high that the liverock hides it all.

[Tigahboy]

I agree Dark. I'm actually now leaning back towards black. hahaha...just saw a really nice display overt he weekend....I think it's just my lack of photography skills and my crapy old camera. So I will get black....and eventually upgrade my camera, and it should be all good. =)

[DarkXerox]

trust me on the tripod thing. Theyre cheap and probably the best thing to add clarity.

[Tigahboy]

I agree...but my ghetto camera doesn't even have the hole to fix the tripod to. So I will definitely be getting a new cam and a tripod. =)

[DarkXerox]

lol yeah, its like 2MP right? I think camera phones are encroaching on that territory now hehe. Whats your price range? I hear that the canon digital rebels are pretty nice if you can dig up the cash. And the Canon EOS SLRs are absolutely godlike lol.

[Tigahboy]

If i think about it...the price i've been paying for corals could have easily afforded me a TOP NOTCH digicam. haha...but my priorities will continue to be corals first, then camera. so it may never happen at this point. haah. i'm just gonna try to borrow one of my friends sometime and "forget" to give it back.