How to Take and Make Great Photo’s

[Shadowramy]

How to Take and Make Great Photo’s
By Shadowramy - http://www.shadowramysreef.com/photo-galleries

One of biggest requests from people I get is how do you take those good photos of your corals. I must admit, I know very little about professional photography, just enough to shot corals. But even with a little bit a knowledge and practice you can take some very good photos or your fish and corals.

In this article I am not going to cover specific cameras, I prefer to use a DSL and specifically a Nikon because I have always had excellent results with it. I have used some point and shoot camera in the past but I could never get the result with them as well as the Nikon DSL. If a DSL is just isn’t in your budget you can still follow along on most of the tip especially the post processing tips and tricks, you won’t have super nice macro shots but you can still have some very good photos using a standard point and shoot camera.

Let me first go over some settings I use on my camera, not every camera is going to have all these settings but they should have the basics. Like I said, I know very little about cameras, just enough to take coral shots so I typically leave these setting where they are for almost all my photo shoots. On most cameras your going to have three basic settings; aperture, shutter speed and ISO and they all should be adjustable.

Aperture

Aperture is basically your “depth of field” (DOF), which is length of the image relative to other images. This is what keeps the images you want to shoot in focus and sharp. An increase in DOF uses a smaller aperture and vise versa. For everything to be in focus, like tank shots, you will use a smaller aperature like f4. For macro shoots you are going to want a bigger aperture (f8 on point and shoot and f16 or f22 on DSL cameras). Now with the bigger aperture your background is going to become much more “fuzzy” but the single point of focus (the image you want) will be much more clear and in focus. Aperture numbers are f2.8,f 4,f 5.6, f8, f11, f16, and f22 and some of your even higher end cameras will go further. Just remember, on tight close macro shots you want a higher aperture.

Shutter Speed

The problem with higher aperature is lighting, even with metal hadlides, it just isnt enough, the field is just to narrow to allow in the proper amount to like resulting in dark photos. This is where shutter speed comes in. Shutter speed is basically the amount of time it takes from where you press the button to where you hear the ‘click’ and the photo is taken. A small aperture shot require less shutter speed and less light, higher aperture shots require much longer shutter speed (because more light needs to come into the camera). Why is this a problem? Because with a longer shutter speed there is more chance of movement from you or what you are shooting resulting in fuzzy out of focus pictures. When shooting with longer shutter speeds you must remain completely still. It is best to use camera stand whenever possible, if that isnt an option you can hold the camera firmly against something (like the tank glass or braces) to keep the camera perfectly clear. When I am doing a photo shoot and using a stand is not an option, I turn of all flow to my tank so everything remains pretty still. I then use my tank glass or braces to steady the camera.

Now if you are shooting fish, it is best to use shutter speeds of 1/125th of a second or faster, because the fish are going to move. For shooting macro shots on corals, I usually just have to keep taking pictures until I can see through the viewer the correct balance of light.

ISO

Next is ISO, which basically will determine how grainy your photo is going to look. Lets just keep it real basic and say most photos in the tank are going to take an ISO of 200.

Tools I use

I do use a couple basic tools to help me shoot. The camera I use is a Nikon D40 DSL with the standard lens for most shots. For macro shots I use a Tamron SP Di 90mm 1:2.8 macro lens. Additionally I use a top down box that was build for me from my good friend Inky. He was able to custom make this box from my camera, and let me tell you, having a top down box makes a world of difference.




Setting up the Camera

Let’s say we are going to do a macro shot. The first thing I do is flip my camera to the ‘A’ position (it might be A or AP on different cameras). A again is for aperture, and I use a setting of f14 or if I can f22. Next I flip to ‘S’ for shutter speed. On the Nikon it reads between 5 and 23 for most of my in the tank shots. However I am later able to adjust this using the speed wheel during my shots. I also make sure my ISO is reading 200.
If your camera has the ability to shot in RAW mode then please set your camera to this mode. Shooting in RAW is like taking the picture as the camera sees it without any enhancements. This means you are able to pull the maximum image quality out of the photo; however the downside is that the photo is most likely going to need some post-processing.
Now that your camera is all setup, flip the camera to ‘M’ or manual mode, this will take the aperture, shutter speed and ISO that you have previously programmed and use it. Sometimes I like to set the focus to automatic to allow the camera to get the best shot, but sometimes if there are many other images in the photo I will have to set the focus to manual to get the exact image I want. Once your all setup take some photos, take a lot of photos. A big trick for me is taking as many photos as I can. You may only get 1 good photo out of every 20 shots so again, take a lot of photos.

Post processing

Now that you are done taking hundred of photos its time to do some post-processing to make them look like they where in the system. Some people think this is absolute cheating, but if you are shooting in RAW mode it is an absolute must. Still your trying to re-create a natural shot and a little goes along way. Some people during the post processing like darker or bluer images, this is totally up to you.
For post-processing I use Adobe Photoshop CS4. Photoshop is the absolute best for this, from CS3 on, Photoshop has the ability to bring in RAW mode images very easily.

Step 1 - Importing the Photo



Depending on you camera type you are going to need to import you photos to your computer. Some like to use Adobe Lightroom for this process, and that is fine but I never really got the hang of it. I simply import my photos and use Windows Explorer to download them to my computer.

As you can see from the photo on the left the images are imported, if you highlight the image in Windows 7 it will give you information about your photo (click on the left image to enlarge). As you can see from the image we are going to use, a Red Planet, the image was taken with a Nikon camera in Raw mode. The dimensions are 3008x2000 and the size is over 5 megabytes.

First lets determine what we are going to do with this photo. I would like to use it for my website but would also like to use it to enter the KCRA photo of the month contest. Therefore I need to reduce the size for the website (5 mb is much too big) but I am going to need to keep some size for the photo of the month contest.

So lefs start by importing this photo in Adobe Photoshop and working with the RAW image file.

Step 2 - Camera Raw



Since Adobe Photoshop CS3 it has incorporated Camera Raw for those wishing to shoot in RAW mode, since I have shot in RAW this automatically opens up in Photoshop.

As you can see from this picture it is very washed out with too much blue in it, this is a Red Planet so we naturally see much more red in the actual coral. In these step we are going to look at a couple different settings;

Temperature: This is basically the kelvin rating of the photo, it is best to enter whatever bulb temperature you are using. Since I am using Radium 20K bulbs I will enter 20000.

Tint: Generally I dont much with this much, however if I am not getting the correct amount of red or green I will adjust the slider.

Exposure: This is a very important setting, too many photos become over or under exposed to much. The more you move the slider to the left the darker the image, to the right the brigher the image. For this shot it looks a little overexposed so I want to make it a tad darker.

Recovery and Fill Light: I dont touch these but you can play around with them if you like.

Blacks: I do like to have a fair amount of definate blacks in my photos, this contrast nicely with the bright colored corals. I typically set this to 6.

Brightness and Contract: If I cant get the exposure setting where I want it, I will play around with these setting, they are not as harsh as the exposure setting. For my photo I am going to leave it alone right now.

All other setting I really dont mess with, sometimes I will mess with Clarity but too much and the photo gets to pixalated.
Here is what we have so far.

Step 3 - Tones, Contrast and Color



Now that we have imported from Camera Raw we can start to work on the photo. I can see right off that the photo tones are still off a bit, to clear it up I can choose IMAGE->AUTO TONE. If I was a professional I would go in and adjust this mannual but using the AUTO Tone controll works well most times. I do the same for Auto Contrast but not Auto Color. If you dont like any of the setting you can always undo them.
The biggest reason I dont like Auto Color is because I think it makes the photo look too green, you can try it and see if you like it at all.


Step 4 - Cropping The Photo

In the next step we need to determine the focal point of the photo. There is no doubt looking at the photo where the best points are, usually near the middle. I usually pick one place that has the clearest and most interesting area and work outward as to what I want to include. You can zoom in and out to see the best perspectives. The images on the bottom first show where I am choosing my focal point, the image next to it shows a zoom in mode, incase I want a really close macro shot.





Once the focal point is determined we need to know how we are going to crop the photo. I could choose to include everything in the photo but I would lose some of the fine polyp detail. However I still want to show the basic form of this coral so I will choose a nice happy medium. Using the Crop tool you can outline what you want to include.




Step 5 - Using the UnSharp Mask Filter

This is where the image is really going to pop and include the fine details. On the filter drop down choose Sharpen and then UnSharpen Mask. I know Unsharpen doesnt sound like it is doing anything but it really does, here are the setting you are going to want to use:

Amount: Between 0-500. You are going to want to keep within the 75-100 range for best results. I have found on corals with very 'puffy' polyps (like birdnests) I want to stay around 20 or 30 or it looks all messed up. Typically 99 will work out well.

Radius: Keep this at 1

Threshold: Also keep at 0



[img]http://www.shadowramysreef.com/images/stories/phototaking/Untitled-10.jpg[/img

Step 6 - Image Sizing

Some people like to do the image sizing first, I like to do it last so I can see what the finished product is going to look like. The reason we are resizing is because we currently are at 5+ megabytes of data, that is just too much for a website to handle without bogging down. If you wanted to do icon or avatar you can use much smaller size but here I want to first re-size for my website and also re-size for the photo of the month picture so if choosen it can be reproduced on a calendar without pixalating.

For basic webpages you can use 640x480, that is a nice size. If you want a bigger picture go with 840x480. What I do is just enter in the Width of the picture (either 540, 640 or 840) and make sure the Constrain Proportions is check so the computer can determine the best height in proportion to my width.





To size the photo simply choose, Image-> Image Size. You will get a pop-up for sizing.

Width: 540, 640, 840 for Websites, 3000 for POTM

Height: Left the computer determine

Document Size: Leave the Width and Height Alone

Resolution: For POTM make sure you choose 300 (dpi)

Scale Styles, Contrain Proporations and Resample Image should all be checked.

Step 7 - Saving the Image

This is the final step, saving the image. Pretty simple here, File-> Save for Web & Device. You will get a pop-up for sizing.



Image: JEPG for website or png or Tiff for TOTM

Quality: I like to choose medium 30%, this seems to be the fastest to view without sacrificing detail. If you are doing a photo of the month you are going to want the max quality.

Progessive: You can check or uncheck this, this basically tell the website to load the information as it comes (check) or what till the complete image is buffered before showing.

Leave everything else default and hit save.

Well that it! You now have some basic information and tools for showing off your best corals and fish. The first picture above is the finished product of this Red Planet.

If you dont have a DSL camera here are some setting you can still use:

Exposure
This can still be used even without shooting in the camera Raw mode. This is the first place you want to play with. There is actually a white balance dropper you can use. Click the white dropper then select something that is white in the photo, the image will change based on these values.



Levels
You can use levels even in camera raw mode or regualr jpg photos. Once the exposure is set come to the levels place. What I like to do is puch the sliders where they are the lowest and bring them up. You can also use the Auto button and see what that looks like.

References

Original Article: http://www.shadowramysreef.com/photo-galleries

Reef Central Photography section: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=333197

What is RAW mode: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml