Watchguy's SPS Addiction (photo intense)

watchguy123 · Mar 3, 2017

I started reefing with power compact lights. That was a long time ago. I graduated into metal halides and now use a light fixture with both metal halides and t5s. A year or two ago I added reefbrite xho's for dawn/dusk effect and to enjoy that pop at least for a short part of the day. My goal has always been to get both good growth and good color under metal halides. I guess I am old enough, and have reefed long enough, that I just have always thought of metal halides as the best of lighting. Certainly over the years, LEDS have continued to progress in terms of both their popularity and success at growing and coloring sps. Although, I would like to switch to LEDS to save the expense of electricity and the incredible heat of metal halides, I am just so set in my ways. Although, hopefully at some point I will transition to LEDS perhaps like G4 Radions or some type of Kessil or who knows what plus t5's. One of my many concerns is how to get good photography, accurate color rendition out of LEDS. When I look at friend's tanks lit by leds, the colors can be truly amazing. Much more vivid and fluorescent than metal halides can ever show. I have tried and tried to take photos of my corals just lit by leds but really have not been very successful at it. I tried some different methods today and have been a little more successful in my opinion. So I thought I would share some photos under just blue leds and I think perhaps these are close to what they really look like under that light. In Lightroom, I had to increase the exposure a significant amount because the pictures were otherwise dark. I set the temperature to 20 k on each of these photos but I always do that with metal halide pictures as well. Some pictures came out looking oversaturated so I reduced the light on those. So that was it in lightroom, 1) temperature adjusted to 20 k, 2) exposure increased substantially, and 3) some pictures had the "lights" reduced. This is far from perfect but I am getting closer to capturing the blue LED lighting "look" of these acros. Some of the pictures came out terrible, so I did not include those but regardless of what lighting I use, there are always photos that come out as poor representatives of what is actually seen. I hope you enjoy my blue LED pictures.

This coral looks good under any lighting but certainly with LEDS, there is so much more vividness to the acro (Is vividness really a word)

TGC Inferno

RR Asia Ray's Rainbow

I think these are really fascinating pictures. I have more to share but I will wait for tomorrow

watchguy123 · Mar 3, 2017

More LED:XHO pictures

Z's Prize

Z's Red Hornet

nitro · Mar 3, 2017

Nice job on the pics the corals and this thread, all of it is fantastic. Keep it going...

watchguy123 · Mar 3, 2017

As you might be able to tell, I am enjoying sharing these unusual pictures

Here is a picture with both XHO's and T5's, I don't think anyone has really seen much of this acro anywhere.

Reef Raft Canada Ultimate Orange Passion

this next picture is taken under just XHOS, and if you are curious, neither saturation nor vibrancy nor tint were adjusted

Z's Pink Cotton Candy

watchguy123 · Mar 4, 2017

More of this series of XHO lit pictures:

Z's Yellow Eyed Jawdropper

Z's Favorite

RR USA Medusa

watchguy123 · Mar 5, 2017

Under metal halide, this looks just like RR USA Pink Floyd, but when you put this guy under XHO's the growth tips turn vivid blue looking much different than the Pink Floyd does under the same XHO's.

Z's Blue Floyd

watchguy123 · Mar 5, 2017

This is a progression over the last year of my Reef Raft Canada Ultimate Orange Passion

The first picture is from January 2016

Reef Raft Canada Ultimate Orange Passion

Here it is April 2016

Reef Raft Canada Ultimate Orange Passion

And March 2017, photo with XHO's

Reef Raft Canada Ultimate Orange Passion

Donovan Joannes · Mar 5, 2017

Holy smoke macaroni!. @watchguy123 please donate some to me. Those are fantastic!

watchguy123 · Mar 17, 2017

A couple more xho shots, these were taken at the same time as the last group. Vacation got in the way of posting pictures. It's always a breatholding moment returning from time away to see what calamity or not has taken place.

Reef Raft USA Orange Passion

Reef Raft Canada Orange Passion. The beautiful blue tips are hidden by the lighting unfortunately

watchguy123 · Mar 25, 2017

Well just got back from two weeks away and most everything in the tank did well. Of course, something happened to a couple of acros but seems relatively trivial compared to other vacation times.

Took some more blue led pictures, it is so much fun.

Z's Yellow Eyed Jawdropper

A pretty favia

RR Asia Ray's Rainbow

RR USA Orange Passion

Jason Fox Flame

Just pretty, not even sure what it is. Probably some form of tongue coral perhaps

Bronc · Mar 25, 2017

Your acros are amazing.

watchguy123 · Apr 24, 2017

Bronc said:
Your acros are amazing.

Hey Bronc, thanks for noticing my frags. Sorry it took me so long to respond.

Reef Raft Canada Wolverine This was growing like crazy and then a few months ago it mysteriously RTN'd (not STN) but I was able to save this frag from it. Now this frag is happy as can be growing and thriving again in the exact same spot. I also had another RRC Wolverine in a different area in the tank that remained happy and healthy. I got both frags at the same time, from the same mother colony in Toronto. I find it fascinating how one RTN'd and the other was absolutely fine.

Jason Fox Flame under reefbrite lighting for photo. Under T5's and metal halides, the colors are more muted.

I apologize that I keep repeating the same colonies over and over again. I try to keep a photo document going once a month or so on most of these.

kevlow · Apr 24, 2017

Absolutely beautiful.
And you don't need to apologize. Repeats do not get old like crack never gets old to a crackhead. lol
I enjoy viewing your reef.

mtraylor · Apr 24, 2017

that red hornet acropora is the bomb

watchguy123 · Apr 24, 2017

kevlow said:
Absolutely beautiful.
And you don't need to apologize. Repeats do not get old like crack never gets old to a crackhead. lol
I enjoy viewing your reef.

that you, a little encouragement is helpful

mtraylor said:
that red hornet acropora is the bomb

Z's Red Hornet is awesome. It is just hitting that size where growth seems to be taking off. Here is another picture of it from this morning.

Z's Red Hornet

I did not end up with that nice crisp sharp focus in this photo.. I am using a stock 18-55 mm lens on an older Sony mirror-less camera. The macro lens for this camera is just so darn expensive but I am pretty sure it would make getting crisp shots easier. I have said this previously, I have a bow front tank so through-the-glass shots almost never work. I take almost all topdown shots because of that darn bow front. I climb up a utility ladder and hand hold the camera while trying to keep my balance. It probably looks pretty bizarre when I am up on the ladder, leaning over the tank, and trying not to fall into the tank or off the ladder..