# Marine Macro



## maxalmon (Oct 26, 2008)

This is my second post since finding this forum. I'm pretty obsessed with marine macro photography and still learning. I'm using a Nikon D40 with a 105mm VR Macro lens, I'll be upgrading to a D300 or D700 by Dec 25th...

This is a zoanthid, the polyps are about .25" in size and this one was a royal pain to capture as the skirts kept moving around.


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## maxalmon (Oct 26, 2008)

And a few more.
Yellow polyps










Blastomusa


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## Battou (Oct 26, 2008)

...


Wow


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## Josh66 (Oct 26, 2008)

Yeah, wow.  These are very nice!  

The Colors are amazing, and the sharpness & DOF are good.


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## Overread (Oct 26, 2008)

^^
what he said!
especially the Blastomusa with its green ripples!

Reading your intro post I take it these are shot through glass from your collection?
also I think you have a mark on either your camera sensor or lens - dust or a mark - in the upper righthand corner - its in all your shots that I can see.


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## Battou (Oct 26, 2008)

Overread said:


> ^^
> what he said!
> especially the Blastomusa with its green ripples!
> 
> ...



It's got to be on the sensor it self, otherwise it would vary in size as macro ratio changes, I see it too.


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## Dmitri (Oct 26, 2008)

Great shots! That third one, of the peeking fish, is cute. "Can I help you?"


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## maxalmon (Oct 26, 2008)

Wow, hundreds of images taken each week and I can't believe that I never noticed those marks/dust...

And yes, the images are shot thru 1/4" glass. I also have a larger tank thats constucted of starphire glass (low iron) it's an expensive specialty glass for reef tanks so that the coral colors don't get washed out, due to it's thickness 3/4" the corals look amazing, but almost impossible to capture any quality macro's.

Just got the Ok about 10 minutes ago to go ahead and order the D700, I'm going to try and attend some local classes or possibly do an online study course, I consider myself an "Ok" photographer, I have a good eye for composition, but still needing to master the camera controls. I no longer shot in full auto and have forced myself to shot in manual and it's taught me a considerable amount, especially with respect to DOF.

Here is another little gen, Ricordia from Florida. Very difficult to capture image, as the tentacles want to move around.






Red Mushroom


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## Do'Urden's Eyes (Oct 27, 2008)

The ocean has some of the best looking and most interesting kinds of wildlife. colours are always amazing.


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## dwol (Oct 31, 2008)

Whoa, simply amazing! Love these


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## maxalmon (Oct 31, 2008)

The new D700 arrived today and still trying to navigate thru all the settings, here are a few, not the best images....Give me a week to figure the camera out.

Zoanthids






Umbrella Leather, these spikes are about 3/8" tall





Still playing around with WB, colors are OK,not the best.





I'm loving the "Live View" thru the 3" display screen, lets me digitally zoom in on macro shots to fine tune the focus.....love it love it love it.

These are Palythoa's





This image above was cropped from the image below....The area is almost in the center, a little to the left and down about 1/4 of the way from the top.


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## Overread (Oct 31, 2008)

Impressive work 
looks like someone is really having fun with the new toy 

might I suggest though - if you having white balance problems - when you get the time read up and try working in RAW mode - that way you can set the white balance in the computer yourself (shoot RAW+JPEG though to start with as RAW can take a little while to get used to)


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## maxalmon (Oct 31, 2008)

I'm kinda throwing myself into the middle of all this..I'm totally new with all this digital techno "stuff", the D40 was pretty simple to use.....RAW is high on my list to figure out next...

1 thing at a time, right now my brain can't accept any more data...


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## Dragonfly..shotz (Oct 31, 2008)

They are exceptional and loved looking at them, awesome photographs. You are going to love RAW!


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## maxalmon (Nov 1, 2008)

Took a little trip over to the Bellagio Fountains.....Took 240 images and still downloading as I type...I think I have some incredible images, took me a few attempts to get the WB and ISO correct due to the brilliant lighting of the watershow....I'll post pics a little later


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## Overread (Nov 1, 2008)

Since your liking macro I think you might find this blog a good read:
http://nocroppingzone.blogspot.com/
though he is dealing more with insects than marine there is still some great advice on the site!


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## polymoog (Nov 1, 2008)

Really great marine pics, I remember when I was in Sea World in Florida last year, taking a whole load of pics thru glass and getting extremely mixed results  But I could have stayed there all day I thought it was really interesting. Hoping to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in LA on my forthcoming US trip so maybe I'll get a chance to take some more shots like that ...


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## maxalmon (Nov 5, 2008)

polymoog said:


> Really great marine pics, I remember when I was in Sea World in Florida last year, taking a whole load of pics thru glass and getting extremely mixed results  But I could have stayed there all day I thought it was really interesting. Hoping to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in LA on my forthcoming US trip so maybe I'll get a chance to take some more shots like that ...


 
Marine Macro when shot thru a glass or acrylic tank is really tricky, you have to shoot directly at the subject, image quality diminishes if you shoot at an angle, thats why all my images are at eye level. Acrylic is even more of a pain to shoot thru, especially if it's very thick. Curved tanks are the absolute worst, I don't even try anymore


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## maxalmon (Nov 5, 2008)

Tried raw mode using the Nikon NX2 program, still learning and a long way to go,

Ricordia (Ric's) About .75" across






Zoanthids (zoa's) Each one is maybe 3/8" across





Wow, this was a tough one, this anemone is about .5" across and sitting directly underneath a 250w Metal Halide 15k light, didn't help that the light was only 6" away from the anemone


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## Markw (Nov 6, 2008)

The combiunation of my two favorite things. Marine keeping and Photography, especially macro.  I envy you. Amazing shots.

Mark


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## pete_6109 (Nov 8, 2008)

Great shots!! What flash are you using?


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## maxalmon (Nov 13, 2008)

No flash. This tank has a 250w metal halide and 2x45w actinic lighting system so the colors of the corals really "pop". A flash won't work as you get nothing but reflections. I ususally move the corals around for proper lighting as I have a staging area in my tank. 

My newest tank is 215g with 3x250w MH and 4x96 actinic lighting so i'll have a total of 1224 watts of lighting, killer on the electric bill, but intense lighting is required to keep the corals alive. Another expensive hobby..


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## a_spaceman (Nov 13, 2008)

beautiful photos and great colours!
in the second photo of the second post, is it some kind of blue jawfish?


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## pete_6109 (Nov 13, 2008)

maxalmon said:


> No flash. This tank has a 250w metal halide and 2x45w actinic lighting system so the colors of the corals really "pop". A flash won't work as you get nothing but reflections. I ususally move the corals around for proper lighting as I have a staging area in my tank.
> 
> My newest tank is 215g with 3x250w MH and 4x96 actinic lighting so i'll have a total of 1224 watts of lighting, killer on the electric bill, but intense lighting is required to keep the corals alive. Another expensive hobby..


 
You fooled me. I thought you were SCUBA diving! lol


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## Canon 450D (Aug 25, 2010)

Good stuff!  I too am into Reef Hobby and have an SPS Dominant 100g Display.  One thing I have trouble with is getting the Whitebalance configs right.

What do you have your WB configs at; auto or manual?


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## Arkanjel Imaging (Aug 25, 2010)

Dude, necro-post lately?  This thread is two years old....


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## Canon 450D (Aug 26, 2010)

Arkanjel Imaging said:


> Dude, necro-post lately? This thread is two years old....


 
^^^^
I just noticed that...my fault.  I Keyword Searched "Reef" and went through the majority of the Threads!


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