[Kilich]

THE PHOTOGRAPHY

I Photograph with a Nikon d800 in my professional career, i will upgrade camera bodies within the next 10 years to an even better body.



My suggestion for Manual settings for these images:

If you're a beginner with a DSLR, try putting the shooting setting on Aperature Priority or A. This will automatically adjust your shutter speed and meter it according to where your point of focus is.



The point of this is to Manually adjust Aperature only, while the camera figures out the shutter speed for you.


- I suggest shooting Wide shots of your fish tank at either f5.6 or f8 and setting your focus point on your aquascape. If the image is still appearing bright, try f11 on shutter priority or lower your ISO if its over 200.

if Youre shooting over f5.6 Adjust your ISO settings to at least 600 if youre hand holding to avoid long shutter speeds.

- If youre shooting vignettes of the tank or simply details, put your aperature at f2.8 if possible, if it wont go that low, go to the lowest fstop possible. some lenses can only go down to 3 or 4 or even 5.6. If you want a good shallow depth of field i'd suggest buying a lens that can open up to f2.8.

This will give you the nice blurry depth of field. When youre shooting details, try and photography on level with the detail, or at a 45 degree keeping an eye on whats in the background to frame your subject nicely.

LIGHTING IS KEY, Everyone wants to show off those nice blue lights, except the blue light doesnt photograph too well in the spectrum of the sensor usually. IF YOU CAN TRY AND TURN OFF OR TAKE THE BLUE LIGHT DOWN TO 10% of NORMAL, this will give you a nice neutral daylight which in my opinion is more aesthetic


THE EDITING

Its always best to expose for highlights so they arent fully blown out then bring back shadows. This is called pushing and pulling the film (its a film reference)

Download yourself Adobe Lightroom, its the only editing app you will ever need for these photos.

To push and pull the contrast to increase detail Id set my settings something like this. Nothing here is in stone, these are general guidelines, id adjust each image properly with fine adjustments. just know these are the directions you want to take the image in.



I warm up the image even when i turn off the blue light, it still is really blue, so i give it a bit more warmth. I didnt put it there, but I adjust exposure to be the most aesthetic for each image. I give a generous boost to contrast, while bringing back highlight detail, and brightening up the shadows.

Clarity, Saturation, and sharpness are a must. PM Me if you want to go more in depth with editing or photography or leave me a message here.