They're not "very manipulated"; they're photographed under actinic lighting so that the colours really pop. A lot of reefers keep their lighting heavily in the UV-violet-blue end of the spectrum, so it's not unfair marketing.
If you look at the seduction zoas for example. looking nothing like normal seducations and there are a few more,
Appreciate the input, i feel better about buying
Keep in mind that online aquaculture businesses are highly sensitive to critiques on social media, and it is not in their interest to engage in false advertising: one, or a couple of bad reviews, could really damage their bottom lines, so few established businesses (as this is) really try to deceive their customers. Again, I'd simply ask them to photograph the polyps you want under your current lighting regime so that you can see what they'll probably look like in your tank.
Just look at the color of the plug...
You should have a chat some time with the vendors about how photographs are taken. I did this myself with a local vendor (very reputable, and a great guy), and I was quite surprised to learn that it's a very lengthy process for him: it takes quite a while to set up lighting, make sure there's a decent contrast with the background (and this is why so many pictures are shot with a dark backdrop), and to make sure that the colouring doesn't appear to be unnaturally amplified. Some might call this "editing", but I think it's more of a product of having to photograph an object under water, from above the waterline, while that object's being illuminated by a reduced spectrum of lighting. No one wants an angry customer, so aside from the few scammers out there who want to pull a fast one, who would deliberately try to deceive a customer with "editing"? I just haven't seen this with any established, online coral vendor in Canada.
I’m well aware of how to take good pictures of coral. That is not what he is doing. He cranks his blues to 100, probably slaps on 3 orange filters then ends it with a bit of editing. Here is an example of him taking a photo then cranking the saturation slider from the home page with the zoas. There are multiple examples usually in the lps section of him doing this with saturation. His wysiwyg pictures normally aren’t bad it’s the colony shots. That hammer is popping a little to much. We have all seen these corals irl it’s obvious there is something going on with his photos. On the second hammer it looks ok until you see part of the torch beside it then it’s obvious. I will say that back in the spring he had some that were hilariously bad and that’s when I decided not to buy from him.
Good call. Hopefully he sees this and cleans his pics up a bit. Wouldn’t be the first time it’s been mentioned on here though. Pretty sure around 6 months ago there was a thread like this it seems like it may have been deleted now though. Can’t find it anywhere. They are a sponsor on here though so who knows.
