Picture colors not good

[J-Dog]

Hey guys, I'm trying to figure out how to take better coral pictures, but I am really having trouble with the color. I've been reading all the stickies about camera settings on DSLR cameras, but nothing really talks about getting color right. Every time I take a picture of my tank, it never looks like what I see in person. Can anyone help with this problem? Do I need to set something different on my camera? or edit the picture after I take it by adding color? PLEASE HELP

 

[clowns101]

Is it your color corals, the image color, or what colors are you refering to that are wacky?

 

[BarbH]

What type of lighting is your corals under, t5s, metal hylides leds? I am going to venture to say that the issue that you are having is with your white balance. If you shoot your pictures in raw format you can than adjust your white balance. Also on your camera in the menu you can adjust the white balance for the type of lighting that you are shooting under, with my camera I am able to adjust this while shooting within manual mode (not using one of the preset options).

 

[J-Dog]

The colors of the corals never look like what they do in person. My tank is under T-5's, so does that make a difference? So white balance is all I need to adjust? My camera is a Canon EOS T2i

 

[BarbH]

I am not familiar with the Cannon cameras, have always had Nikons, but you should be able to adjust the white balance. If you are adjusting in on the camera you will want to select for fluorescent lighting. The way that digital images work it reminds me of shooting with slide film. Been a few years since I did that was when taking some photography classes. Different types of lighting will give off different Kelvin temps and the light itself will give off a different hue to it. The human eye will automatically compensate for this so usually we don't notice it. But it can become very apparent when photographing it, especially if the white balance is not set properly. Also photo editing programs will allow you to adjust the white balance, I can do this in my program of photoshop elements when I am using a RAW file. I am still working on mastering my skills with using a digital camera and it has been awhile since I had taken my photography classes so I am a bit rusty on trying to explain it all. We have some fairly good photo guru's here that can probably explain it a lot better than I have, but hopefully this will help a little :smile: