Phone or real camera?

[Heavenly Corals]

What is best way to take pictures of coral in my tank? I have coral and 2 RBTA I need to sell. I need a Skimmer for my 25 gallon sump. Pictures I take don't look good.

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[Vincerama2]

Real camera of course!

Clean the glass first, and manually focus the camera, turn off the flash. Can't do that with a phone.

 

[tr1gger]

My phone surprisingly gets the best photos of all my cameras. I think its the light on the tank /shrug

Keep testing!

 

[Tenny]

The real camera will get the best pictures from the tank. As @Vincerama2 said, being able to manually focus and everything will get you the best pictures.

If you are just trying to sell something, buying a camera probably doesn't make sense unless you are doing it a lot or want it for other scenarios too.

 

[Heavenly Corals]

Borrowed a full setup camera. Every fuction u can think of plus 2 extra zoom lenses. Want to sell some coral and two rbta. Not looking to get rich just supplement my hobby.

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[Tenny]

Much nicer huh? Especially if you can just borrow it from time to time.

I picked up a Nikon D3200 (seen in other thread) for the "family" but my ulterior motive was for the fish tank...

 

[Heavenly Corals]

Lol sounds like me

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[Heavenly Corals]

Is there an Angel or setting I should use? What lighting in tank?

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[Tenny]

I had the most success using a tripod, manual focus, manual mode, no-flash, and then adjusting the aperture to get the right colors (not sure if that's the correct terminology to use).

My pics are all under Kessil's (150/350's).

 

[Heavenly Corals]

I had the most success using a tripod, manual focus, manual mode, no-flash, and then adjusting the aperture to get the right colors (not sure if that's the correct terminology to use).

My pics are all under Kessil's (150/350's).

Have tri pod, no flash. Rest of it I'm not sure.. ill take some pictures tonight.

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[Heavenly Corals]

This camera has 187 pages... this might be to advance for me, what happened to point and click

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[aqua-nut]

This camera has 187 pages... this might be to advance for me, what happened to point and click

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With power comes complexity. What camera do you have? Another club member might have the same/similar one and be able to help/translate.

Some tips...
Have camera parallel to the tank. Shooting at an angle will cause distortion.
Always use tripod.
Use cable release, remote control or self-timer.
Room should be dark.
File format should be RAW. Gives you the best chance for color correction.
Many medium-high end cameras can do custom white balance. If you can't figure that out, put some white object in tank for a test shot. That can be used for color correction after the shot.
Use Manual focus.
Take lots of shots. Electrons are cheap!
Practice lots.

 

[Heavenly Corals]

With power comes complexity. What camera do you have? Another club member might have the same/similar one and be able to help/translate.

Some tips...
Have camera parallel to the tank. Shooting at an angle will cause distortion.
Always use tripod.
Use cable release, remote control or self-timer.
Room should be dark.
File format should be RAW. Gives you the best chance for color correction.
Many medium-high end cameras can do custom white balance. If you can't figure that out, put some white object in tank for a test shot. That can be used for color correction after the shot.
Use Manual focus.
Take lots of shots. Electrons are cheap!
Practice lots.

Am going to try all of that... the camera I have is olympus digital camera e-1 with 3 different zoom lens

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[Heavenly Corals]

Here are a few pictures I took, don't think i did a good job.

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[aqua-nut]

Not the best pics I've seen but a long way from the worst!

Keep at it. Work on focus. The first BTA pic is nice but the focus is just in front of the nem.

If you turn off all pumps, wait till water stops moving, then you can use long exposures and smaller aperture - aka f stop. This will give you better depth of field. Higher ISO will also help with this.

You might also try less blue light. Seems like many DSLRs don't like the actinic blue and go all wonkie (technical term )

 

[denzil]

I would set the DSLR shooting mode to continuous and just take a bunch of continuous shots. Also, feel free to use auto-focus too but make sure you're changing the focal point often and your aperture is smaller to allow a larger area to be in focus. If possible, try to shoot in a f/8 or higher. You'll have even more success with a macro lens. Good luck!