New reef-brite Led

[bandit]

I just picked up a actinic Reef-brite LED bar from Marinescape. I cant believe I waited so long. Its amazing and install in 5 min. With the LED on you cant even notice the 96watt power compact actinic so I swapped it out for another daylight.

If you haven't gone LED yet what the heck are you waiting for!!!!

[Malyon18]

Looking good

[NjOyRiD]

very nice bud!! good job!!

[bandit]

thanks I just wish I could figure out how to capture the colors with my camera.

[NanoSF]

thanks I just wish I could figure out how to capture the colors with my camera.

Don't bother trying. I tried this also, and it just doesn't work. Your pictures are better than average for blue LEDs. Unless you have some crazy expensive camera, I just don't think it picks it up.

[Darth]

thanks I just wish I could figure out how to capture the colors with my camera.

Me too I just bought a dslr camera and still can't figure out how to get a good pic without it being on auto. I would love to figure out the settings *sigh* one day I suppose

[Dekker500]

If you really want to get your colours adjusted, read up on your camera's "White Balance" settings. This is where the magic is when you are using specialized lighting. Cameras will usually guess "Daylight" or "Tungsten" (flash), but don't know what to make of actinics!

The nice thing about you guys with reef setups, you will often know the K of your lighting, and so you can directly set it when you edit your pictures (assuming you have a photo editing software).

If you do not have a photo editing software, find the controls to change your white balance on your camera, and take one shot with each setting under exactly the same lighting. If you do them in the proper sequence, you can then review them and pick the one that looks the most "natural". If it was the 3rd shot that looked best, it means you should use the 3rd setting for your tank shots.

[Hookup]

+1

Post processing is required almost always and is required in all aquarium shots.  Unless you like blue.

Shoot in RAW and adjust white balance and color temp in the software of your choice. I use adobe lightroom.

[Dekker500]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the other poor man's way to set your white balance...

Find a sheet of pure white paper that does not have any glossiness to it. Something out of your printer should do fine. Set it up so your aquarium lighting lights it up, and take a photo of that.

You want to adjust your white balance so that your sheet of paper appears white, identical to the real life color. This technique will help you adjust your white balance to the 'natural' white you see, and will help keep you from adjusting the color to something artificial (albeit pretty).

As suggested, if you use post processing (like Lightroom) shoot in RAW and remember to take at least one shot of your white paper during your shoot. That way when you are processing them, you can determine the white balance for that paper shot, and apply that value to all your shots of the aquarium.