# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Getting the feel for close-ups



## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

I had a chance to play with my camera this weekend. I know its not pictures of my aquarium but these are friends that hang out around my pond. They where kind enough to set still while I learned more about manual settings on my digital cameras.

Hawk










































Trust But Verify «*»®


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

I had a chance to play with my camera this weekend. I know its not pictures of my aquarium but these are friends that hang out around my pond. They where kind enough to set still while I learned more about manual settings on my digital cameras.

Hawk










































Trust But Verify «*»®


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## BobAlston (Jan 23, 2004)

Nice pictures.

With closeups you get into issues of what do you want in focus and that not everything can be nor do you want it to be in focus. But how much do you want and how to make the camera settings (aperature) to do what you want.

Really fun stuff. Can require a lot of pictures to get one you really like.

I started doing such with fish 30 years ago - but then was limited to film.

Bob

High Pressure CO2 sources, needle valves, information:
http://members.cox.net/tulsaalstons/AquaticPlants.htm#High%20Pressure%20CO2


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## Guest (Aug 12, 2003)

What settings did you use.

- Resolution
- Aperture
- Macro

Bob is right,

When working on closeups I would pay attention more to the center and main subject of picture composition. In close up pictures you want to bring the focal point out by making surrounding a bit blurry and center piece in focus. You can achieve this by working with Aperture settings.

Lower aperture ~8 -> smaller opening -> will provide bigger depth of field -> "entire" picture in focus.

Example









Higher aperture ~2.5 -> bigger opening -> will provide smaller depth of field -> "certain" part in focus.

Example


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## BobAlston (Jan 23, 2004)

Jay -

Great, visual explanation!!

Bob

High Pressure CO2 sources, needle valves, information:
http://members.cox.net/tulsaalstons/AquaticPlants.htm#High%20Pressure%20CO2


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

[ what setting did you use?]

EV = 0
white balance = bright sun
Macro = on

This is the setting I used for these pics. but when I take pics of my aquarium I set EV as low as possible -1.6
In the camera I have (Fujifilm Finpix 2800) I have three white balance setting for fluorescent lights. I use the 2-3 setting. the 3 setting gives more of a pink so I don't use it as often. One day I hope to get a better camera, The more I plat with manual pics the more comfortable I feel using them and the more I wish I had a better camera.

Hawk

Trust But Verify «*»®


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## António Vitor1 (Feb 2, 2003)

the camera is not that bad Hawkeye..








look at your pictures...


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

Its an Ok camera but I would like to get closer pics. This camera doesn't take extra lens but all said that's the only think I don't like. It has great battery life. It uses smart cards. I have 3 64meg an never have ran out of space. I use a smartcard reader/writer on my PC so down loading pics is a snap. If it only have macro lens I would be happy with it. Well for now until the next best thing come out.









Hawk

Trust But Verify «*»®


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## Overfloater (Apr 2, 2004)

I just bought a Canon A70. It's a great camera and the macros are pretty good. What swung me was the fact that you can add lenses. I am especially interested in a macro lense. Here is a pic of one of my snakes to demonstrate the macro ability of the A70.










I admit it's not 'that' close. I have not mastered the art of photography yet









Link to original file - much more detailed!

Bob

Los Dios De Verde

[This message was edited by Godslayer on Thu August 14 2003 at 12:12 AM.]

[This message was edited by Godslayer on Thu August 14 2003 at 12:17 AM.]


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## Gomer (Feb 2, 2004)

Two more examples of playing with the aperature (taken at different times)

low aperature value (2.8 iirc)
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/louieg/Milford1.jpg

high aperature value (8.0)
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/louieg/081103/Milford.jpg


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2003)

Well,

This is not a great example Goomer.

You have focus left and right on F8 setting but there is still not much in and out focus.

See this for even more good explanation.

http://www.aquatic-plants.org/photo/digital_photo/digital_photo5.html


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2003)

Godslayer,

Sorry many but I'm not a snake fan and your picture is just plain nasty.









But good picture overall.


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## EDGE (Feb 28, 2004)

You should see a pacman frog eat a mice.









I am having difficuty with my nikon 5000. Everytime I zoom in on manual setting, the F stop increases automatically. I will have to adjust the aperture to compensate for the extra light requirement. This causes the photo to look blurry when there are fast moving fish in the photo.

Any help would be great to overcome this problem.

I am going to try increasing the ISO to 200 and see if that will help it out any

72 Gal, 3 WPG PC 10 hour, pressurize co2 /w controller 1 bps, Fluval 404, ph 6.8
A Canadian's Plant Traders website

[This message was edited by EDGE on Sun August 17 2003 at 09:55 PM.]


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## Wasserpest (Jun 20, 2003)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by EDGE:
> Everytime I zoom in on manual setting, the F stop increases automatically


Look at your lens. I am not familiar with your model & brand, but most lenses are not as "fast" in their tele setting. For example, if you have a lens with 35-140mm (4x) in 35mm terms, you will see something like F=2-4 (or something similar) That means that the widest open setting (2) is available at the wide angle setting, while 4 is available at the Telephoto setting. As you zoom in from 35 to 140, the original 2 changes to 2.8, 3.5 and 4.

Use a flash to freeze movement, and use a F-stop in the middle of the range, to have both sufficient depth of field and quality.

Gs... excellent picture, both in quality and content. Good thing I had already eaten


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## EDGE (Feb 28, 2004)

flash to freeze movement? more info pls

72 Gal, 3 WPG PC 10 hour, pressurize co2 /w controller 1 bps, Fluval 404, ph 6.8
A Canadian's Plant Traders website


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## 2la (Feb 3, 2003)

How do you maintain adequate lighting with a large F-stop? At F 8.0 the picture is dim even at a shutter speed as slow as 1/30 second (camera can go up to 1/2000). Any slower and the camera does a processing algorithm that just isn't conducive to capturing fish that are moving in any sort of way (blur). Using the onboard flash--even at a reduced setting--I tend to get washed-out fish and (with higher shutter speeds) grainy, noisy backgrounds. This is a Sony DSC-F717, BTW. I may eventually go with an external flash, but I'd like to learn the limits of the camera before I try to extend them.


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## Overfloater (Apr 2, 2004)

Have you tried playing with the exposure settings? To get the pic of my snake I had to use the flash, but like you said, it was all washed out. I had to drop the exposure to -2 to get a decent picture. Better to have a pic slightly underexposed than overexposed anyway.



> quote:
> 
> and use a F-stop in the middle of the range, to have both sufficient depth of field and quality.


Did you try this?


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## 2la (Feb 3, 2003)

Exposure sets itself automatically to -2. I've only dabbled a little with an intermediate F-stop setting while I've been trying to 'max-out' the camera, but I'll fiddle around a little. Maybe I should drop the ISO to 200?? I'm just grasping at straws here...

Thanks for the help,

2la


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## Overfloater (Apr 2, 2004)

Is your camera in full manual mode? If you want to take pics of fast moving objects, such as fish; I would use shutter priority mode. If the pics come out dark then I would go to full manual and fiddle with it from there.

Bob

Los Dios De Verde


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## imported_Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 31, 2003)

2la - You'll need an external flash in order
to be able to take pictures with fstop 8.0
and shutterspeed 1/60+ with the F717.
Try bringing the Fstop to 4.0 and take a few
pictures with that. Even at 4.0 you should
be able to get the entire fish in focus unless
its looking right at you. It still might be a
little dim though.

You've got me thinking about an interesting
experiment that I may do tonight - put
the camera on a tripod and fix my external
flash over the aquarium and take the same
picture with several different settings. Should
be interesting. I should have done this a while
ago!

-
Ghazanfar Ghori


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## 2la (Feb 3, 2003)

Actually I figured out one of my problems already: I actually need to set the exposure to *+*2.0 with the shutter speed fast. I got a pretty sweet closeup of an SAE that way (who knew they had specks of irridescence?). The two major problems with these settings is that there's a pretty significant shutter lag (about half a second), and the image on the LCD is way overexposed, making focusing on small fish extremely difficult. I can leave the flash off right up until I snap the picture, but then the LCD becomes too _dim_ to focus manually. Catch-22 city. But I'm fine using a low F-stop since my fish are small anyway. The experimenting continues...


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## imported_Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 31, 2003)

How can you control the exposure in M mode? Or are you taking the pictures
in S mode - if so, you're using Fstop 2.0?

-
Ghazanfar Ghori


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## EDGE (Feb 28, 2004)

I can control exposure in M mode on the nikon 5000.

72 Gal, 3 WPG PC 10 hour, pressurize co2 /w controller 2 bps, Fluval 404, ph 7.3
A Canadian's Plant Traders website


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## Wasserpest (Jun 20, 2003)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by EDGE:
> flash to freeze movement? more info pls


The duration of the flash is equivalent to 1/1000 (or shorter if output is reduced). This will freeze most movements (exceptions are flying hummingbirds and insects, for example).

Using flash has another great advantage... a neutral (close to white) color, which can't be said about fluorescents.

Due to the reflecting glass, as well as reflecting particles in the water, it is not that easy to use the inbuilt flash of the camera. I think the key here is to get as close as possible to the front glass (even touching it). This might be difficult as it could scare the objects that you are trying to catch, and the macro capability of your camera might throw a stick into that.

But try that. Using the flash your results will be superior compared to images without flash.


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## 2la (Feb 3, 2003)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by Ghazanfar Ghori:
> How can you control the exposure in M mode? Or are you taking the pictures
> ...


I was referring to S mode. I can't control exposure in M mode. F-stop automatically sets itself in shutter priority mode, and since I've been experimenting with ultra-fast shutter speeds, the camera automatically stops down to 2.0. Obviously until I get an external flash, I'll have to compromise F-stop for shutter speed or vice versa, depending on the activity level of the fish.


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