Cant figure this out for the life of me!

[Slick Fork]

I use adobe lightroom, it's great for organising as well as "developing". Photoshop elements is also good for more of a "getting into photography" kind of program and is significantly cheaper at ~$100 vs lightroom at ~$300.

For free, you should have a program available from Nikkon that will allow you to develop RAW files into your format of choice

[Jeff000]

Originally Posted by Slick Fork

Use a tripod and aperture priority mode to get the depth of field you want. Depending on lighting and your camera you can be between ISO 400-800 (1600 on mine) before you see any real "noise" in the image.

Biggest tip though is just shoot and shoot and then shoot some more, it doesn't cost you anything but your time and practice is the only surefire way to get to know your camera!

What camera do you use?
Noise on the D5100 is evident at iso400. This is also subject to how picky you are.
I shoot a D700, 85mm f1.4 is my go to lens, but it is not a macro. But just as a crop I can get some great shots. I have a 65mm macro, and it is only "ok" I think. But even with my 85mm I don't like shooting above 800 because I can start to see the noise, although most will say that it is noiseless past 1600.

Shoot and shoot some more is great advice.

Originally Posted by kobelka

Thanks. I did also end up getting an 85 mm macro lense. That is nice. When shooting in raw is there a certain program you use when adjusting pics on your computer?

That's a nice macro lens. You should be happy with it
Shooting Raw (NEF as you're shooting a Nikon) is not really for the beginner, what raw does it take away all the image processing from the camera and gives it to you. So unless you know what you are doing or have lots of time to figure it out it's not really something I would recommend, you can still adjust WB (which is the biggest headache when shooting a tank imo) from a high res jpg.

[kobelka]

Hey Jeff,
WB is proving to be something of a PITA for me. The Nikkor 85mm really seems to take fantastic pics. Everytime I try to custom set the WB with a white piece of plastic in the tank it doesnt work? I think I am following the instructions right. I can get it to work in other situations. Just have to keep messing with it I guess.
Oh ya, RAW is not likely for a beginner like me. Mabye someday but probably not!
Thanks

[Jeff000]

Originally Posted by kobelka

Hey Jeff,
WB is proving to be something of a PITA for me. The Nikkor 85mm really seems to take fantastic pics. Everytime I try to custom set the WB with a white piece of plastic in the tank it doesnt work? I think I am following the instructions right. I can get it to work in other situations. Just have to keep messing with it I guess.
Oh ya, RAW is not likely for a beginner like me. Mabye someday but probably not!
Thanks

Set the WB manually to 10000k (of the highest it can do) and then take a picture of that piece of plastic in the tank, and use that as a reference to change your WB in post production. Bonus points if you can put that piece of plastic into every shot so that you can change every shot individually.

Setting the WB off a grey card (or white) for a whole series of pictures is only useful with strobes, imo. It's not designed to compensate for light as blue as tanks have. So you have to get the rest of the way in post.

[Snaz]

RAW is the preferred method to shoot if you are doing post production like white balance on your computer. The problem with jpg files is they are a compressed file format and that can introduce artifacts especially when playing with them in post production program like Photoshop.

As a beginner though stick with the jpgs for now but be aware if photo editing software makes your pics look poor then consider shooting RAW.

[Slick Fork]

Originally Posted by Jeff000

What camera do you use?

Shooting with a Sony A55. Noise is a little noticeable at 800 but doesn't get really grainy until 1600

As far as RAW not being for the beginner, most programs will have an "auto" setting that does the same job (or better) as the camera does when shooting jpg's. You could also try shooting RAW and Jpg. Takes up more memory on the card but it gets you both a 'ready to go' jpg and a RAW file that you can play around with. As noted above, manipulating jpgs never works out well.