Whole tank pics

[mkirda]

I am curious what techniques work best for people.
Especially in the non-digital realm.

Personally, I use slide film for tank shots.
My typical attempts at shooting tanks goes like this:

Eliminate every possible light source I can in the room, turning off lights, shutting curtains, etc.
Center tripod at middle of tank.
Raise/lower the post to put lens about mid-tank level.
Try to leave lens at or around 28mm.
Level the camera.
Open up lens to get reading at or near 1/8th to 1/30th of a second.
Leave camera on A-priority mode.
Shoot three shots, bracketing at +/- 1 stop.

I've considered shooting five shots, with -2,-1, 0, +1, +2 intervals.

Normal bad things that crop up:
Camera's meter sometimes badly messes up exposure.
Tips of corals are severely over-exposed, especially at the top of the tank.
Blurred fish.
Blurred soft corals.
Ambient light from other objects shows up in glass reflections.

I've considered using my polarizing filter to get rid of the reflections, but it would lower the shutter speed by nearly three stops, making the fish quite blurry. ISO 400 film would help solve this.

What have others done to get decent shots?
Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[Len]

I've encountered the same exact problems you have. I have no idea how to get good full-tank shots. I've found that bracketing only works only to an extent because the ripples at the water's surface constantly alters the light the camera sees. I haven't tried turning off all the pumps yet, and I'll probably do that next time (should be significantly better results).

I use a Nikon 1.4 lens and open it completely wide and use ISO 400 (sometimes 200) so I can slow down the shutter a little. Otherwise, there's always blurred motion and reduction of sharpness. People think that 400 watt halides are bright; well, they're not. Compared to sunlight, they suck The camera's metering doesn't lie (most of the time at least)

Going to try a 1 stop ND grad filter too next time. I've noticed most of the blow out occurs in the upper half, so the grad filter might help.

 

[mkirda]

The camera's metering doesn't lie (most of the time at least)

Going to try a 1 stop ND grad filter too next time. I've noticed most of the blow out occurs in the upper half, so the grad filter might help.

Len,

I just got back a set of slides from the past weekend while I was out doing light measurements...
Some results:

Do not bother with a +1. I'm thinking that the Nikon meter always over-exposes tank photos. From now on, I'm thinking that -2, -1 and 0 are the correct ones to try... Even the -1 shots were over-exposed to a certain degree.

Great idea about the grad filter. I have a Cokin setup, will have to try that out. Just have to get the filter first, maybe 1 and 1.5...

Which 400 speed slide films have you tried? What where your results?
Mine have been somewhat grainy. (See the u/w Nikonos photos from my Palauig article in the April RK mag for examples.) Have never tried ISO 400 speed for tank photos yet, as I mostly use Velvia or E100VS.

Regards.
Mike Kirda