With the Canon 10D, doing plant photos, with no interest in getting fish:
Long exposures of 5 to 10 seconds at F-22 for good depth of field
Tripod with some black cloth draped over the shiny aluminum legs to prevent reflections of legs.
Time delay so that I don't shake the camera when I press shutter button.
I use a macro if I need extreme close ups, but the 28-135 zoom has a pretty good macro range, too.
I use manual shutter and manual aperture. Indicated exposure seems over exposed to me, so I go one stop below.
I set the ISO (equivalent of film speed) at 100. Actually quality is very good through 800, and then you begin to see some speckling at 1600. 3200 is pretty bad.
If I were to use a flash, it would have to be off camera, lighting the tank from above.
To reduce reflections off the glass, it is best to have other tank lights off and take pictures at night so that you don't see a window reflected in the picture.
The white balance seems pretty good. The 10D seems to do much better than film at producing a pleasing balance with different kinds of light.
I edit images with Photoshop. They usually need a contrast increase and often an increase in saturation. The 'sharpen more' filter does a nice job, too. Off color balances can usually be taken care of in photoshop, also.
For sending pictures here, I reduce image size to about 6 or 7 inches width, pixels per inch kept at 72, and pick the "Save for Web" option. This reduces the size of the file down to what is allowed on this site. By the way, has the allowed size been reduced from 128 K to 100 K? I tried to send a 108 K picture this morning and was told it was too big.
If you really want to fuss, you should record raw images. Raw images must be opened with the Canon File Viewer utility, and you can adjust white balances, etc. there. Photoshop can not open raw images. They have to go through File Viewer, first.
The 10D has high enough resolution so that it can be used to digitize your color slides. Cut a slide-sized rectangular hole in some cardboard, tape the slide to the cardboard, illuminate the slide from behind with a reasonably white light source---cool white fluorescent seems OK---and take a picture of the slide with your macro lens at a 1 to 1 magnification ratio. You will find that your image has virtually the same resolution as the original slide. Old slides that have undergone color shifts can be fixed up in Photoshop.
Long exposures of 5 to 10 seconds at F-22 for good depth of field
Tripod with some black cloth draped over the shiny aluminum legs to prevent reflections of legs.
Time delay so that I don't shake the camera when I press shutter button.
I use a macro if I need extreme close ups, but the 28-135 zoom has a pretty good macro range, too.
I use manual shutter and manual aperture. Indicated exposure seems over exposed to me, so I go one stop below.
I set the ISO (equivalent of film speed) at 100. Actually quality is very good through 800, and then you begin to see some speckling at 1600. 3200 is pretty bad.
If I were to use a flash, it would have to be off camera, lighting the tank from above.
To reduce reflections off the glass, it is best to have other tank lights off and take pictures at night so that you don't see a window reflected in the picture.
The white balance seems pretty good. The 10D seems to do much better than film at producing a pleasing balance with different kinds of light.
I edit images with Photoshop. They usually need a contrast increase and often an increase in saturation. The 'sharpen more' filter does a nice job, too. Off color balances can usually be taken care of in photoshop, also.
For sending pictures here, I reduce image size to about 6 or 7 inches width, pixels per inch kept at 72, and pick the "Save for Web" option. This reduces the size of the file down to what is allowed on this site. By the way, has the allowed size been reduced from 128 K to 100 K? I tried to send a 108 K picture this morning and was told it was too big.
If you really want to fuss, you should record raw images. Raw images must be opened with the Canon File Viewer utility, and you can adjust white balances, etc. there. Photoshop can not open raw images. They have to go through File Viewer, first.
The 10D has high enough resolution so that it can be used to digitize your color slides. Cut a slide-sized rectangular hole in some cardboard, tape the slide to the cardboard, illuminate the slide from behind with a reasonably white light source---cool white fluorescent seems OK---and take a picture of the slide with your macro lens at a 1 to 1 magnification ratio. You will find that your image has virtually the same resolution as the original slide. Old slides that have undergone color shifts can be fixed up in Photoshop.
