Learning how to be a pro photographer in 1 hour...

[503reefland]

Ok maybe not just picked a Sony a58 so I can finally capture reeftank stuff and things.lol any pointers are appreciated! My tank is not to where I want it aquascape wise as just caught the Sps bug 3-4 months ago bottom picture was when I had the euphylia and goniopora bug...lol

Edited April 5, 2018 by 503reefland

[Bubbles]

At Cuttlefish and Corals, I am the coral photographer. I use a Canon SL2 with an EFS 35mm macro, I use a custom color card to set my White balance to help with the overwhelming blue that leds do to cameras. I also use a G-4 R-5 Color shift for color correction. I usually keep the ISO at 100 or as low as your camera can go. shutter speed at 1/400 of a second and aperture at 2.8. if the photos are too dark slowly bring the shutter speed down. the lowest the shutter speed should be is 1/250 if the images are still too dark then start bringing up the ISO. Just remember the higher the iso the lower the image quality. 

anyhoo what you have looks great! Keep working on it!!

[What_The_Frag]

Just a suggestion, if you're not already shooting in RAW then I'd definitely suggest it. I do photo work for a living and shooting in RAW is hands down one of the easiest ways of improving your finished photo. Nowadays you can get editing software either dirt cheap or free that will support RAW/DNG file formats. When you do your post editing, RAW images have about 4x-5x as much data built into the file so if your shot is a little under or over exposed you can make the adjustment. It also allows you to do your white balance after the fact as well, but I'd always suggest trying to dial in your white balance as much as possible while you're shooting. Personally I use Adobe Lightroom for most of my quick editing and it's amazing how much you can manipulate a RAW photo (even ones that seem unusable).