Neocaridina Photos

[pbmax]

I took some time late last week to grab some photos of my chocolate and yellow Neocaridina Davidi in their garage tanks. Both are 20g with Swiss Tropicals HMFs, lots of vals, some hornwort, and panda corys. I have a single 30" finnex stingray LED fixture over each (and I didn't use any supplemental light for the photos).

After a bit of monkeying with manual focus I ended up with several that were halfway decent. I still need more light, but I was lazy. Let me know what you think.

 

[Betty]

Wow, nice shots. Lots of detail when you click on the pics for full size. I like those dark colored shrimp.

 

[pbmax]

Thanks! There's a big dark-red colored female in the chocolate tank above that keeps hiding from me when I have the camera handy. One of these days I'll get her...

 

[Grimblegrumble]

These are fantastic photos

 

[pbmax]

Thanks! I have a Nikon D3300 that performs pretty well in low light conditions - better than any other camera I've owned. I only have the standard 18-55mm IS lens, but I can't complain. The auto-focus wasn't behaving for me in these macro shots, so I had to use manual. This is either because I don't fully know how to use it (highly possible) or the nature of the scenes involved.

I may work a bit to get some sharper shots this week, so stay tuned.

 

[pbmax]

Here's another shot of one of the black females (she's quite a pretty shrimp). This photo has slightly more detail than the previous shots, I think. I did add some more light over the tank (a 20" finnex stingray). Next time I'm going to jack up the F-number (shrink the aperture) to improve the depth of field a bit. This will probably require a tripod and remote shutter release / timer though.... pain to use between the truck and the tank and it's too cold to open the garage door again today...

I post-process all of these for exposure / brightness (increase) and framing. I need to get better at the camera's exposure compensation, but it's difficult to figure out how much to add.

I do know someone who has one or more killer Nikon macro lenses....hmmmm

 

[Betty]

That camera talk sounds like a foreign language to me. I tell myself that I'm going to learn to use my Nikon camera, but I never will. I just point and shoot.

 

[pbmax]

Hehe, they do a pretty good job doing just that. But that extra tiny bit of quality requires outsmarting the camera sometimes.

A higher F number (smaller aperture size - the amount the shutter opens when a photo is taken) gives you better depth of field. This means that more stuff is in focus in front of and behind the object you're focused on.

A lower F number (larger aperture size) gives you poorer depth of field. This means that things in front of and behind the object you're focused on will not be as much in focus. If your depth of field is really poor you'll end up with part of your fish or shrimp in focus and part not.

The trouble is that a smaller aperture lets in less light, so you either need more light over your subject, or you need a slower shutter speed so you can actually see something in the resulting photo. Slower shutter speeds mean the camera has to be really still (tripod) to avoid blurring. It also means your subject needs to remain very still - that's the tricky part with aquaria.

So to get a better depth of field along with better, sharper detail (less blurring with faster shutter speeds) you need a lot of light.

 

[lloyd378]

Awesome pictures! I'd love to do a nano tank but my betta is taking the whole tank now.i love how the videos capture the shrimp legs so well. Super cool

 

[pbmax]

Awesome pictures! I'd love to do a nano tank but my betta is taking the whole tank now.i love how the videos capture the shrimp legs so well. Super cool

Thank you! I like larger tanks myself... nanos are too much work, in my opinion. All those photos above are from 20g tanks, though I do most of my shrimp breeding in 10g tanks.