Moonlight/atinics photography

Spacieman · 11/07/2013, 03:14 PM

I am trying to capture the "pop" of corals under my royal blue and blue led lights
I am using a canon t3i.
Suggestions?

jimmcwibb · 11/15/2013, 06:40 AM

You need to get the white balance right. Probably the built in settings (sunny, cloudy, tungsten bulb etc) won't look right, so you'll need to set a custom white balance. You can do this using a grey card under the blue lights or, for a quick and dirty approach, just use the general bluish look of your tank under the moonlights. Here's a quick example:

http://i.imgur.com/QzcOfaa.jpg

You can see that the background looks grey. In reality it is a strong blue colour. However, the corals look exactly as they do in real life, and have a lot of pop.

If you have any corals with a blue colouration this might cause problems, and you'd likely get better results using a grey card.

You can also try returning some of the blue to the background by tweaking the levels in lightroom or similar software.

11/07/2013, 03:14 PM	#1
Spacieman Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Beaumont, Tx Posts: 2	Moonlight/atinics photography I am trying to capture the "pop" of corals under my royal blue and blue led lights I am using a canon t3i. Suggestions?

11/15/2013, 06:40 AM	#2
jimmcwibb Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 95	You need to get the white balance right. Probably the built in settings (sunny, cloudy, tungsten bulb etc) won't look right, so you'll need to set a custom white balance. You can do this using a grey card under the blue lights or, for a quick and dirty approach, just use the general bluish look of your tank under the moonlights. Here's a quick example: http://i.imgur.com/QzcOfaa.jpg You can see that the background looks grey. In reality it is a strong blue colour. However, the corals look exactly as they do in real life, and have a lot of pop. If you have any corals with a blue colouration this might cause problems, and you'd likely get better results using a grey card. You can also try returning some of the blue to the background by tweaking the levels in lightroom or similar software.