FTS settings?

soccerbag · May 21, 2010

Hoping some of the experts can help me here. I've been taking "decent" pics of my reef for a year of so now. One thing that eludes me is a GOOD full tank shot. I can get the colors correct and am happy with how the corals and lighting look in the photo. The one thing that ruins the picture everytime is the blur of the fish. I typically shoot with a basic (stock) lens on a Canon Rebel XT. Settings I use typically are the AV mode in RAW, no flash, depth of field as high as it will go (32 I believe), and use a nice tripod and remote shutter. I have tried shooting at 100ISO and 1600ISO (everything in between). I understand all of the basics (turn flow off, no backlighting in room, etc).

Just curious what setting you guys are using to shoot these nice FTS's where everything looks so clear (fish and all).

Any recommendations from the pros?

Thanks!

fishypets · May 21, 2010

Craig I had better luck when shooting the FTS with my macro lense. Try faster shutter speeds and lower apature, etc. It might take a good hunderd or so pictures before you start to see the results you're looking for. Once you get in the "ball park" you will find it's easy to fine tune.

soccerbag · May 21, 2010

Okay - I haven't tried shooting the FTS with my macro. I'll give that a shot this weekend and see what I can come up with....thanks!

cparka23 · May 21, 2010

First off, nothing you do will get your fish to appear sharp at the proper exposure if you're shooting at f32. The way you 'freeze' objects in motion is to reduce the shutter speed.

I'd start shooting in Tv (shutter priority) mode and see if you're getting good depth of field. If not, bump up the ISO and try again. If the scene is not lit well enough, the camera will open up the aperture, resulting in loss of depth of field.

Before you start, though, use spot or partial metering mode. (On my 5D, the setting looks sorta like this for spot metering --> [.] and this for partial metering [o] ). In doing so, you're telling the camera that you care about the exposure of the subject in the center of the photo. That will help the camera to choose the correct aperture based upon the tank, disregarding extra stuff in the pic like the stand and canopy.

Hope that helps you out a bit. If not, maybe one of the pros will chime in with some more seasoned advice. :)