Beginner with an advanced subject needs help...

[weepete]

Could be to bright as well. the message no GD implies there's no data for the camera to record and the card is either blown out or clipped. I'd try using a spot metering mode and make sure you are filling the frame with the card. Either that or just adjust it in post.

 

[Blazer1]

I will try again today to get the white balance to adjust, this is critical
For what I want to do with the camera.

If it will not adjust I think I can still swap it for a Canon. They seem to be easier to adjust white balance on.


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[soufiej]

Either line should allow a custom white balance setting. Read your owner's manual. Canon and Nikon are lines used by the pros. No reason to think one does basic functions better than the other.

It's not just focusing on something, it's filling the frame with that subject. If you simply take a photo while focused on a neutral object, you may not have set the camera's metering system to only allow that subject to be your color reference.

If your camera detects multiple colors in the frame, it has no idea what you intend for it to use as a reference. In a shot which shows the aquarium and the wall, whatever color balance you set will be wrong for one of them.

Read your manual and fill the entire frame with your neutral colored subject. If your lens will not focus at a close in distance which allows you to use only one subject in the full frame, then you need to adjust your metering to spot. That's not perfect but will help.

Yes, Lightroom and Photoshop are that much better than the software that comes with any camera. They are available on a 30 day free trial basis. There are other alternatives but these are very commonly used processors/editors/file management systems. They have fairly steep learning curves to make the most of them but they are an essential part of your digital photography process.

 

[Derrel]

I will try again today to get the white balance to adjust, this is critical
For what I want to do with the camera.

If it will not adjust I think I can still swap it for a Canon. They seem to be easier to adjust white balance on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Read The Fine Manual this evening.

 

[Blazer1]

I will try again today to get the white balance to adjust, this is critical
For what I want to do with the camera.

If it will not adjust I think I can still swap it for a Canon. They seem to be easier to adjust white balance on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Read The Fine Manual this evening.

I am sorry, I am not understanding?

I think I may have found my problem setting white balance! My aquarium light is LED, 52 individual LEDs to be exact of different colors. When holding a white card under the light I can make out the individual colors, kind of like a disco ball. Could this cause a problem setting white balance and is there a way around it?

 

[cherylynne1]

I will try again today to get the white balance to adjust, this is critical
For what I want to do with the camera.

If it will not adjust I think I can still swap it for a Canon. They seem to be easier to adjust white balance on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Read The Fine Manual this evening.

I am sorry, I am not understanding?

I think I may have found my problem setting white balance! My aquarium light is LED, 52 individual LEDs to be exact of different colors. When holding a white card under the light I can make out the individual colors, kind of like a disco ball. Could this cause a problem setting white balance and is there a way around it?

Yes, that is the problem. It's like an extreme version of the fairly common problem of mixed lighting. Your camera is looking at three or four different versions of "white" and has no idea which one is correct. And none of them will ever be correct, because the others will appear incorrect no matter which it chooses.

The only solution for mixed lighting is to change it. All the lights have to be the same color.

 

[Blazer1]

Not good news,..it is a $1000 light that is critical for the health of my aquarium.

I think my only option is to find someone with an aquarium lighted to a similar kelvin rating using a single point light source, such as metal halide, and set the balance off that. Is this plausible option?

 

[vintagesnaps]

From what you described the camera is picking up the colors of the spectrum in the white in a different way with LED light than what's typical with LED or sunlight.

Is the wall red and the base of the aquarium a camel tan color? I'm thinking the first one looked like it's rather low light but the colors look relatively accurate. Your pictures look pretty good to me. The color of the close up of the coral looks fine.

The one Charlie (Snowbear) adjusted looks brighter and shows the colors better so his balance adjustment using something whitish in the tank seems to have worked. Can you put something white (plastic?) in the tank long enough for a few test shots? then try using whatever setting worked best next time you photograph the tank.

It makes a difference how close you are to the tank - if you're close more of the light the subject is in will be coming into your camera; if you're across the room it will be reading the light differently. Isn't LED lighting rather bluish purple compared to incandescent? I think if you're photographing light that's more blue than a warm tone, that you're probably going to see that bluish color in the photos. But when you were close to the coral you got more accurate bright color probably because you had the camera up close in the same lighting as the coral. From a distance the camera is adjusting to the mix of room light and LED light.

Maybe try adjusting the room light. Are the pictures better or worse if it's a day with plenty of sun coming in? Do you have lamps using incandescent or the newer bulbs? (those to me seem more white and not such a warm yellowish white).

See if the camera's manual has a section on adjusting WB and if there are suggestions on types of lighting that go with the various settings. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't cover LED so it might be figuring out which setting works best with those type lights.

 

[Blazer1]

I think a better description of the light in question my help.

The light is made up of 4 light pucks , each puck contains 13 individual LEDs.

Each puck contains;
4 Cree cool white
3 Cree royal blue
2 Osram very deep blue
1 Osram deep red
1 Cree green
1 SemiLED 415nm violet
1 Edison 400nm UV

For a total of 7 different colors and 52 total LEDs.

I can control each color independently from 0-100% and turn off/on any channels but changing the spectrum will not give me true life results.

This is a very specialized light I am sure Nikon did not prepare for.

 

[snowbear]

It's not that Nikon "isn't prepared", you have mixed colors of light. I'd suspect you'd have the same problem with Canon.
I'd just shoot raw, get a copy of Lightroom (or rent the cloud version) and make your adjustments in post. You don't really need to add anything to the tank - take a shot of the sand and use that as the WB reference.

Good luck.

 

[spiralout462]

I

It's not that Nikon "isn't prepared", you have mixed colors of light. I'd suspect you'd have the same problem with Canon.
I'd just shoot raw, get a copy of Lightroom (or rent the cloud version) and make your adjustments in post. You don't really need to add anything to the tank - take a shot of the sand and use that as the WB reference.

Good luck.

I agree with snowbear. He has proven that accurate white balance is obtainable in Lightroom. Certainly not the camera's fault. If you are going to shoot seriously you need Lightroom or equivalent.

 

[Blazer1]

I said Nikon but meant camera companies in general probably don't design their camera with the intention of taking photos under such unusual lighting.

 

[soufiej]

I think I may have found my problem setting white balance! My aquarium light is LED, 52 individual LEDs to be exact of different colors. When holding a white card under the light I can make out the individual colors, kind of like a disco ball. Could this cause a problem setting white balance and is there a way around it?

I'm going to disagree with the idea "this " is your problem.

It doesn't matter whether the individual elements of light are made up of different colors.

Yes, if you hold your white card directly beneath the LED's, you'll notice the individual colors of the lamp. At that distance the colors do not have time to mix as they do at the distance they sit away from the bottom of your aquarium.

Color mixing is either additive or subtractive

Lighting usually falls under, and operates via, the rules of the additive description; http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/addcol.html

There are elements of lighting which can be used as subtractive mixing, however, what you have going on in your aquarium light is purely additive mixing.



Take the example provided in that link. If you held a piece of white paper up to each lighting instrument with a separately colored gel of one primary color, you would see the paper reflecting only those colors which can exist with the colored gel in front of the white lamp. Red gel would get you a "red" piece of paper because all other colors have been stripped out by the gel. Green gel results in green paper and blue gets you blue paper.

You would, due to the size of the lighting instruments, need three separate pieces of paper to see that effect.

Once you move the lamp far enough away from the subject to allow color mixing, the three primaries (RGB) will result in a single white light.

In other words, the presence of the entire range of visible light. Basic physics.

It will not be purely white light since we don't have easy access to inexpensive lamps which produce pure white light and gels are seldom exact in their color rendition unless you pay for that. But that is the theory of the idea and operation.

If you back your card away from the LED's, the mixing occurs. That's why you do not perceive a fish swimming through three "pools" of light, each a separate primary color. Additive color mixing. Basic cognition.


Don't take this wrong but, your problem is you have just purchased a camera, you know little about the camera and don't seem willing to read the owner's manual, you do not comprehend the physics of light and now you want professional results in your first attempts at photography. You have yet to obtain image editing/processing software which helps you as a photographer achieve the desired results.

Not even sure your monitor would show you accurate colors if the camera captured them.

IMO, if we had another thread where someone was asking why don't my first 100 shots look like the pro's work when they have been doing this for years and have invested in the education and the equipment to make things right, you would get a very brief explanation of "why".

Take some time to learn the rules of photography. Then try again. No one starts off as Michael Jordan or Pablo Casals.

OK?

 

[Blazer1]

incorrect!

To summarize the majority of this discussion the main question is "Why will my camera not auto adjust under my tank lights?"

You are very creative in finding this conversion me complaining that I am not shooting like a professional in a week.

 

[Dave442]

I would use another light for those photo sessions. The LED is probably above 10,000 K like you noted. That is as high a setting as I have so without another light I would use that setting and then further adjust the RAW file in post.

For doing a custom WB It might help to have the white card under the water but not too far from the lights and see that it fills the frame, but keep it out of focus.