Canon eos rebel t3 lens advice

[Danghost22]

I have no clue what I’m doing in all honesty I just wanna take some nice coral shots and not break the bank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

The secret is clean tank glass, clean lens and use of lens filters. I have a set of brand new 55mm filters cheap if that’s your size .

 

[Wiskey]

I have the T4i and use the 100 MM 2.8 Macro lens for shots like these:
IMG_0695 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_0700 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

The trick with the Macro lens is that it can focus much closer than a regular lens, which lets you get great resolution photos. The other trick is to shoot in Raw, that way you can edit the white balance in Lightroom or Photoshop to fix the blue tint without destroying the photo. If you start with a JPEG it throws out most of the data so when you adjust the white balance the photo doesn't look right.

Whiskey

 

[EW_Fish]

I have the T4i and use the 100 MM 2.8 Macro lens for shots like these:
IMG_0695 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_0700 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

The trick with the Macro lens is that it can focus much closer than a regular lens, which lets you get great resolution photos. The other trick is to shoot in Raw, that way you can edit the white balance in Lightroom or Photoshop to fix the blue tint without destroying the photo. If you start with a JPEG it throws out most of the data so when you adjust the white balance the photo doesn't look right.

Whiskey

+1 on shooting RAW & editing the blue to color correct. If you want those super nice close ups a macro is the way to go BUT you don't always need a Macro lens to get great shots.
Stock lens, No Filters, TEMP correct in light room (only thing I did in these photos)

 

[SuncrestReef]

The key to good close-up shots is a quality macro lens, and to get more of the coral into focus you need to use a very small aperture. Set the camera to manual mode so you can control shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and set the lens to manual focus. Also adjust the white balance as far to the blue spectrum as possible to counteract the blue lights.

Here are a couple shots I took today:

 

[Wiskey]

+1 on shooting RAW & editing the blue to color correct. If you want those super nice close ups a macro is the way to go BUT you don't always need a Macro lens to get great shots.
Stock lens, No Filters, TEMP correct in light room (only thing I did in these photos)

That's true, you don't need the Macro lens if you are willing to crop and sacrifice the resolution. I took this photo with the stock kit lens that came with my camera, I think it's 18-55mm, they sell for like $20 on Ebay. I shoot these images with it because I have to submerge the lens to get this quality, and I don't want to risk that with a $400 lens.

IMG_8618 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

What I'm suggesting might be outside your price range, I shoot corporate events occasionally so I don't mind spending the money for a lens. (To be fair, I don't use my camera body for professional work, I borrow the full-frame body that my work owns for marketing material, but I need to use my lenses because all they have are specialty lenses).

If I were starting fresh again and had a t3i with kit lenses and nothing else I would get Lightroom first, change the camera settings to shoot in RAW and learn to adjust the white balance. This will make more difference than ANYTHING. They still sell lightroom under a perpetual license for something like $150 and that is really your ticket. If you are a student it's cheaper. Youtube will tell you all about white balance adjustments.

Once you have lightroom and start getting proper color ballance you will probably want to start focusing sharper or capturing more light, that's where some of these expensive lenses come in.

BTW,.. I love DSLR's. I got into the hobby shooting wheeling photos for our group. This is me jumping my Jeep. This was taken with a Nikon which was later taken back from me. It's a long story but I was borrowing it, and it was willed to somebody else, but it started my photography passion:
JeepJump by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Whiskey