A simple guide on shooting your first coral video!

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So.... you found the video setting on your camera? Awesome.... now what do you do with it? Well... you can have a bad first experience like most people... or you can get some decent results with a few simple steps. Keep in mind, I am still learning most of this myself!

Anyways.... just like shooting pictures of your tank, your display should be as CLEAN as possible. Remember that when you clean your tank, you are going to disturb the clarity of the water for a moment so it is best to do your cleaning a while before you shoot vids.

If you have a glass tank, use a razor blade to scrape the glass clean in areas you want to shoot. If you have an acrylic tank, you can use any plastic safe pad/cloth for most of it.... Hard algae like coraline can me removed with a credit card. Bow the credit card in your palm/finger tips and flake that stuff off!

Cleaning the area at the bottom of the tank, or where the sand bed begins is critical! Your best macro footage is going to come from this area.... if you keep a lot of nice pieces on the sand bed you will get the most out of this!

Corals can be moved close to the glass for shooting macro video.... if you have a HD cam with a decent lens, you can get some INCREDIBLE stuff.... my camera is cheap compared to most, and I can get some cool close ups. I can't even imagine using a REAL HD cam!

Corals that you move may need some time to reopen before you shoot. If I want to be 100%, I will move all my corals in the morning before the lights come on, or the night before.

Just like shooting pictures, you want to use a tripod whenever possible... now I don't use a tripod when I do my macro photo because I can't get the cam close enough to the coral when I shoot. If you have the option of mounting your camera with the lens flat against the glass you are set. Most tripods have a level on them and you want to use that if you can't get the lens flat on the front of the tank.

No tripod? I used to stack books...boxes... whatever I could to raise my camera up :)

Ok... enough about set up.... let's get ready to shoot!

I shoot my tank with a Canon Powershot SX20IS, so if you have a Canon you might relate a little!

Sometimes I use the "movie" mode, sometimes I use the scene modes.... My camera has an "aquarium" mode that claims to capture true whatever under aquarium lighting, but it is complete trash IMO.

I use the super macro mode sometimes, but I find that I can get closer footage if I use a adjustable macro mode in one of the "scene" functions.
When I shoot under metal halides, I use the "daylight" mode... Bubbly/Dirty tanks I shoot in "Snow" mode... I play around with it, each tank is different... some modes will destroy the colors, others fix them... You kinda have to play with it.

My camera has an option to focus dead in the center when recording in video, auto and some others.. I use the center focus when shooting macro. Make sure to set your quality to the highest possible. Video is large, so have a lot of free space!

Remember, video looks wwayyyy better on the little LCD screen most of the time... when you throw it up full blown on the comp, it may look a little different. Like I said, you have to play with it.

Back to modes, if this is your first time shooting... you might want to just try the auto modes out to see what you can do... worry about the other details later. I'm still trying to find the perfect shooting mode for my tank.. and lighting has just about EVERYTHING to do with it. The more blue, the harder it is going to be to capture true color I am finding out.. Anyways, lets just get some video recorded!!

Let's assume you have your awesome coral stuck up to the glass ready for some macro video, and your camera is stuck against the glass in auto or a macro mode.... When you press record, your camera may take a second or two to focus on the object... the unfocused portion of the video can be trimmed out, or faded later if you choose to mix multiple videos.

This part is simple... Press record.... beep! It's recording! I hope you have the sound muted!.... wait..... wait...... 20 seconds...... ok thats enough. Now you have to disturb the camera and press the button. No problem, the last couple seconds of the video can be edited out as well.

Congrats, now you have recorded some delicious video for your viewing pleasure. Rinse and repeat the process over and over on other corals and you can mix them together when you are ready!

Play around with it... just like photos, you will delete a lot of videos! Don't get discouraged... try again!

I'm still learning a lot of the editing software that is out, but for quick simple video... I use windows movie maker 7... It's a simple as dragging the files into the user friendly program, hitting a "auto" edit button which fade transitions everything and adds a title and ending.

There are several programs out there, see which one works best for you.. Google some free video editors and try them out! When you get advanced, you can try stuff like Adobe Premiere/After Effects and do some CRAZY stuff.

So easy, even a Krayman can do it!

:D
 

Rattooth

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How to get video to forum

Hi,
I have videos shot on I phone or I pad. When I try to select video to place on forum, I get error message. Any ideas??
Thank you,
Brad
 

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