240 Inwall Construction (Image Intense)

[weatherson]

Hef: Thanks and it's partly a depth of field benefit as well as the fact that the subject is most often ultra brightly lit by the metal halide lights. The camera compensates for this (exposure) and renders most everything else (background) much darker.

Joseph

[Bax]

Joseph

I can understand how you get your corals to remain still enough to take these beautiful photos, but the Henoichus Butterfly?!?!?!

I have had one in QT for three or four weeks and can only catch a blur of him. That's a great shot! I may have to resort to one handed photography during feeding time to capture mine

[weatherson]

Bax: That shot was one that actually came out of about fifteen. The other fourteen were trash worthy only. I used the continuous-shot mode and followed him around the tank as he swam with auto focus enabled, which is faster than I am in manual mode. I was actually lucky to get one from those fifteen. It's the likes of "Nope, nope, nope, nope, ooh... a nice one, nope, nope, nope. This is where digital photography has a huge advantage. I could have continued shooting fifty shots looking for the perfect one with no cost involved aside from the time to do so.

Joseph

[Lunchbucket]

weatherson - LOL! yeah my wife works wonders for me LOL

Lunchbucket

[weatherson]

I was at a friends house last night and took a few shots of his reef tank. Here's a few photos for your perusal...















Joseph

[McGinnis]

Great Shots Joseph! What I like most about the photos you take is how you always seem to get such great detail and sharpness right at the center, and everything else seems to fade into the background! Amazing job!

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by McGinnis
Great Shots Joseph! What I like most about the photos you take is how you always seem to get such great detail and sharpness right at the center, and everything else seems to fade into the background! Amazing job!

I agree, his photos are just awesome...

Keep up the good work

Shawn

[whodah]

wow - nice joe!

and, i might add for the humble weatherson, those were taken w/ no tripod!

[maxxII]

Originally posted by McGinnis
Great Shots Joseph! What I like most about the photos you take is how you always seem to get such great detail and sharpness right at the center, and everything else seems to fade into the background! Amazing job!

He's using a shallow depth of field to get that.
If your camera allows you to change your settings, (most point and shoots dont unfortunately), you can get the same effect by using a larger F-stop. This gets kinda weird since a larger F-stop is actually a lower number, (IE...an F-stop of 2.8 is larger than 4.5).
Its easier to think of in this manner....F-stop represents how much light you are letting into the camera, but in an exponential manner. F-stop 2.8 lets in twice as much light as Fstop 3.5, etc.

Just like in reefkeeping though, everything you do on a camera affects something else. By opening up your F-stop and allowing more light, you reduce the depth of field and you increase the shutter speed, (More light means more exposure means faster shutter speed).

Hope that all makes sense.....

Here is a thread on another forum which will help explain things better and in more detail.

Reef Photography Workshop

We now return you to your regularly scheduled progamming. This has been a public service announcement.

Nick

[melev]

Here's an article by GregR of the Photography forum, and he goes into a good explanation of DOF: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/gr/index.php

[Lunchbucket]

great now i have to be a camera guru too

Lunchbucket

[McGinnis]

Thanks Marc for the link, I am still working on getting my photos together. I am in the process of getting some of my 10-gallon nano to learn how to take shots as amazing as some of these here!

[weatherson]

Sorry for the delayed response. For some reason, I didn't receive the email notification.

Thanks everyone for the kind words and photo explanations/links. I personally prefer the shorter depth of field for the closer shots as I feel they better simulate what the naked eye sees in a similar situation. It also adds a quasi 3D effect, if you will. But, as mentioned, there's trade offs in everything and photography is no different.

Joseph

[maxxII]

Joseph,
What macro lens are you using?

Nick

[Broodingwolf]

Joeseph, what sort of lighting did your friend have over his aquarium?

[uncle_ben]

hey hi, I just want to know, is that a heliopora?

[weatherson]

Nick: I use the Canon 100 MM macro lens. It's an incredible lens.

Broodingwolf: I forget the Kelvin ratings but he has two 400w DE's, two 250w DE's, one 250w SE and four 110w VHO's. This over a 31" tall, 240-gallon custom tank. Unfortunately, he is taking this tank down due to a potential relocation of his family.

uncle_ben: Yes, you are correct. Otherwise known as the Blue Ridge coral.

Joseph.

[brandon0350]

i am super impressed by your skimmer. where did you get the tubing at? was it online? the only places i can find sell it by 5 foot and thats all

[brandon0350]

i am super impressed by your skimmer. where did you get the tubing at? was it online? the only places i can find sell it by 5 foot and thats all

[weatherson]

brandon0350: Thanks. The 10" cylinder I had on hand but the others I puchased from a local plastics supply store. The light blue injector tubes are actually PVC and those I did purchase online.

Joseph

[Knyght]

Well Joseph I see my wish finally came to fruition. Belated congrats on TOTM. Finally got my canopy done!!!!!!!!! check out my thread, I would appreciate your response.

[weatherson]

Knyght: Thank you very much, belated or not.

Joseph

[McGinnis]

Joseph,
How are things going for you down there? Haven't heard much from this thread in a long time, just making sure you did not forget about it.

[weatherson]

Shhh... I'm trying to sleep over here. Yes, it's been a while so I suppose an update is due. I'll start with the negatives. I lost one of my clams. I'm now down to just twelve. I'd been having issues with them all slightly retracted and sloughing mucus. This had been going on for several weeks but I couldn't pin down what the cause was. I found no clam eating snails so the best I could come up with is some sort of infection of some type. The good news is since the passing of the single clam, they are all now looking healthy with full extension of their mantles.

Next is the fact that the Red Bugs are back after a single treatment. They don't seem to be causing any real harm at this point but I know I will inevitably need to do more treatments. I really don't like doing this but until another remedy is found, it looks like I have no choice. And by the way, no corals or anything else was added to the tank during the time between the treatment and their reappearance.

Aside from that, and an isolated partial bleaching of an Acropora, everything is doing very well. Corals continue to grow well and coloration is very good. I did pick up a couple new SPS corals from a fellow club member who is getting out of the hobby as well as six green Chromis. I now have eight. Here's a shot I took today...



And a shot of a couple newly found zoanthid nudi's. I constantly look for these guys and they never seem to be eliminated. As long as I stay on top of removing them when I see them, they don't do much harm. The one on the right is on its back.



Joseph

[Lunchbucket]

Joe - sorry to hear about the bugs and the clam. have you looked into pinched mantle disease (PM) that will cause mucus sloughing and retracted or curled mantle.

nice full shot pic!

Lunchbucket