titus'reef Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I am using the Canon Rebel T2i and I love it. The lens in not that great but for now it works ok. You can always upgrade the lens later. At least that what my plan is. Costco has REALLY good deals on the camera. good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electrokate Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Canon shooters: you get purple over the color of your blue tangs? My Canon 50D and my Dad's T1i can't shoot blue tangs or grammas with true color. I asked on another forum and the Canon users there all said you have to photoshop the fish to more normal color. Tried switching all the lighting thinking it was the bulbs, and tried all the presets along with custom K settings. No luck. Hmmm. Maybe I need to switch to one of those 5K LED lighting systems just so I can take better pictures of my blue tang and royal gramma (: I need the phtography workshop next weekend. Now that you have your camera you should come too, it will probably be a lot of fun. One thing about photography, there is always more to learn. No matter how much reading I do every shoot reveals more. The internet has unlimited resources for problem solving too, and there are videos with lessons. I have learned more about photography in the last year than I did when I studied it in school. Thanks, Kate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
titus'reef Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Canon shooters: you get purple over the color of your blue tangs? My Canon 50D and my Dad's T1i can't shoot blue tangs or grammas with true color. I asked on another forum and the Canon users there all said you have to photoshop the fish to more normal color. Tried switching all the lighting thinking it was the bulbs, and tried all the presets along with custom K settings. No luck. Hmmm. Maybe I need to switch to one of those 5K LED lighting systems just so I can take better pictures of my blue tang and royal gramma (: I need the phtography workshop next weekend. Now that you have your camera you should come too, it will probably be a lot of fun. One thing about photography, there is always more to learn. No matter how much reading I do every shoot reveals more. The internet has unlimited resources for problem solving too, and there are videos with lessons. I have learned more about photography in the last year than I did when I studied it in school. Thanks, Kate I agree with you. But it took me a while to figure out the right settings for my camera to take good shoots of my blue tank. When I had just T5s it was a piece of cake taking pictures of the blue tank. Metal halides make a big difference when is about taking good pictures. Even the corals don't look as colorful with metal halides on the pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electrokate Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 The EOS 450D/xsi looks pretty similar to mine in features. How are you liking it so far? One setting with halides I needed to change was contrast. Out of the factory it was set rather high, and I lost both the shadows and the highlights even on very well lit tanks. Also thought the saturation was set a bit low for reef tanks and botanical subjects. I aim to match the picture to the naked eye view, and out of the box the settings were not getting me there. I like being able to choose spot metering when shooting one coral and you can make the camera focus only on the center as well, if you wish. Not so handy shooting groups of people or full tanks, so don't forget to change it back. Like I do (: Kate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 Okay so I have a quick question. First the only pictures i've taken are with the $90 digital camera's that are just point and click so I have no idea what I'm doing anyways... I just got a Cannon E0S Rebel XTi for free and I herd it's a decent camera. The lense says canon zoom lens EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 II. I can't take a single decent picture with this thing upclose on corals.. i've tried every setting and changing the iso and setting it to AV and using AI Servo.. nothing works for me. Out of a hundred pictures I got one that looks decent. I'll post it below. So from what I was told I need a Micro? lense or something.. so everyone that knows about cameras.. what lense should I get and where do I get it? This was the only semi clear picture I could get and it isn't even that close to the coral The older 18-55mm isn't really a very good lense. I did take a few pictures with it that ended up in magazines however the lenses availabel now are a lot better. If you want a cheap lense that is considerably better then either get the newer 18-55mm IS lense (A good all around lense) or the 50mm f1.8. Both can be purchased used for less than $100 and are pretty decent. Also as someone earlier mentioned you need to watch the minimum focus distance and be sure you are not trying to get too close. A nice macor lense would help however it isn't necessary to have one for most pictures. (I don't own an actual macro lense) www.dpreview.com is your best friend. They give the Canon T2i their Gold award. I must say it is an amazing camera for the type of camera it is. However, it did fell a little plastic to me. I've heard this before although I don't get the same feel. I've had mine for 8 months or so and I'm still impressed with how great the pictures turn out. Canon shooters: you get purple over the color of your blue tangs? My Canon 50D and my Dad's T1i can't shoot blue tangs or grammas with true color. I asked on another forum and the Canon users there all said you have to photoshop the fish to more normal color. Tried switching all the lighting thinking it was the bulbs, and tried all the presets along with custom K settings. No luck. Hmmm. Maybe I need to switch to one of those 5K LED lighting systems just so I can take better pictures of my blue tang and royal gramma (: I need the phtography workshop next weekend. Now that you have your camera you should come too, it will probably be a lot of fun. One thing about photography, there is always more to learn. No matter how much reading I do every shoot reveals more. The internet has unlimited resources for problem solving too, and there are videos with lessons. I have learned more about photography in the last year than I did when I studied it in school. Thanks, Kate Taking photos with accurate colors is a particularly hard challenge with reef tanks using any camera because the temperature is beyond what either the cameras or most photo editing programs are capable of being adjusted to handle. To the original post. As others have mentioned the choice between cameras is more or less a matter of preference. With decent glass any camera will be capable of good pictures in the right hands. I use Canon myself and can provide advise on them specifically however there also is nothing wrong with using a Nikon or any other camera as long as it meets your needs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h2odvl Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 The EOS 450D/xsi looks pretty similar to mine in features. How are you liking it so far? I like being able to choose spot metering when shooting one coral and you can make the camera focus only on the center as well, if you wish. Not so handy shooting groups of people or full tanks, so don't forget to change it back. Like I do (: Kate I just got got it last night and I like it. It is a Canon Rebel XSI with a 18-55 IS lens. I just took a few shoots really quick. Here are the examples: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackaninny Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 When shooting tanks you can improve colors a lot by using the custom white balance function. Get a new, clean piece of PVC pipe (white obviously) and drop or hold it in your tank under your normal lighting conditions. Fill the viewfinder with only the pipe and press the shutter and save as your custom white balance setting. Depending on your camera the setting should be saved until you change it. Here's an example of what I'm talking about from YouTube: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 I just got got it last night and I like it. It is a Canon Rebel XSI with a 18-55 IS lens. I just took a few shoots really quick. Here are the examples: Are these shot with Jpeg or Raw? If they are Jpeg then increase the saturation a couple of notches up. Might also bump sharpness up a notch also. If they are Raw then do it during post processing using DPP (Canon Digital Photo Professional). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h2odvl Posted January 16, 2011 Author Share Posted January 16, 2011 They are jpeg. Is the changes post or pre shot? I'm guessing post because I don't see a sharpness adj on my camera I'm starting a photography class on Monday. We'll see if it helps Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 They are jpeg. Is the changes post or pre shot? I'm guessing post because I don't see a sharpness adj on my camera I'm starting a photography class on Monday. We'll see if it helps Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk There is an adjustment in the camera to adjust the sharpness, not sure exactly where with that particular model though. If you get to the meeting today I can take a look and show you how to set it. The changes with Jpeg are a camera function that occurs immediately after the picture is taken and before the image is saved to the card. With Raw this isn't applied until post processing and is selectable. I.E. You can choose whether and how much to change it. Note: I just pulled up the manual for that camera and it is pretty much the same. Look on page 82 of your User Manual to customize a picture style to bump up the saturation and sharpness a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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