Macro Coral Shots (My reef aquarium)

[Lpsouth1978]

I am new to photography, but got a new Nikon D5500 with Nikkor 105mm AF Micro f/2.8 lens. I have been wanting to be able to get good Macro's of the corals in my tank, and now I can. This will be a place for me to show all of my Coral and aquarium related macros. I have purchased a nice Focus rail and am hoping to get a lens stacking ring, to attach my 50mm f/1.4 prime lens to my 105mm, for those SUPER macro's.

Fell free to post your comments, thoughts, or suggestions. I am a total noob and appreciate any recommendations.

My first ever Macro shot


First attempt at Focus Stacking


Other Macro shots of corals












My absolute FAVORITE shot to date

 

[AlanKlein]

Interesting and nice shots.

 

[Dave442]

They look pretty good to me for a first post of these. For the focus stack it would be nice if the subject closest to the camera was in focus.

What kind of lighting did you use for these, is it different from your normal coral tank lighting?

 

[Lpsouth1978]

Interesting and nice shots.

Thank you.

They look pretty good to me for a first post of these. For the focus stack it would be nice if the subject closest to the camera was in focus.

What kind of lighting did you use for these, is it different from your normal coral tank lighting?

That first focus stack is definitely not perfect, and I will probably retake that on some day. Almost every one of these shots is focus stacked. Some with as many as 70 images. The lighting is just the aquarium lighting which consists of 14000K Metal halides and actinic blue T5HO.

 

[LarryLomona]

Very nice!

 

[Dave442]

The stacking is good but the first two have some of that ghosting like I sometimes get, especially if there is movement. Did you have water movement turned on when taking these stacked shots?
It seems the MH give good lighting results for the photography, keep them around if you ever start using LED.

 

[paigew]

Those are beautiful!

 

[Lpsouth1978]

The stacking is good but the first two have some of that ghosting like I sometimes get, especially if there is movement. Did you have water movement turned on when taking these stacked shots?
It seems the MH give good lighting results for the photography, keep them around if you ever start using LED.

There was no water movement, but my stacking skills were pretty poor on those first attempts, I have since improved my technique (mostly I just got a focus rail).

We actually have LED over most of the tank, but I have not been able to get good shots under the LED's. We are considering switching everything back to Metal Halides, so that should help with the photos.

 

[LTxNate]

Very cool shots!