My journey into photography (formerly "Newbie questions")

[freezetyle]

Originally Posted by jzz30tt

You can find good macro lenses occasionally for really decent prices. I managed to come across one such deal and it's amazing how much nicer to use a purpose-built lens is. I'm over on the nikon side of things but i'm sure the same is true for deals on canon lenses. The tamron 90mm in canon mount has a great reputation as does the tokina 100mm

One of my first macro's after getting it. It being the Nikon 105mm 2.8 AF Macro lens.



I love how much easier it is to work with when compared to extension tubes and the like.

Great photo, Thank you for sharing. I have always been a nikon point and shoot fanatic. I imagine there dslr's experience would follow suit.

I have been cruising ebay for some cheaper ones. I have a bunch of Film SLR's that were my grandpa's i might just have to dive into those ones and play around with some of the lenses there. I wish i had the same appreciation for camera's like he did. There are some really neat camera's (exakta, Leica, rollei, etc)

[jzz30tt]

I would if i were you. There's bound to be some great glass in there and great equipment in general. I still shoot film as well as there are certain places where you really cannot beat it. A good digital scan at 4000dpi and you've got a very high resolution digital image to play with after.

[piusma]

It's a function of amount of light (ISO) and aperature for your depth of field. You want to have as much light as possible. So,

Set your ISO settings to as high as you can (as long as it still gives you reasonably clean images).

Step your lens down to f/5.6 or f/8, you're going to loose light as you stop down the lens but that's the only way you can gain depth of field.

Now your depth of field actually includes some space in front of your focal point and some space behind it. So you should set your focus point so it'll maximize your depth of field. (i.e. choose a focal point that is a little behind the closes point)

Also remember your focal plane is parallel to the sensor in the camera. So by tilting the camera you could get more of your subject in focus. (The only problem is if you shoot at an angle, the glass from the tank might give you distortions)

Now hold your breathe and roll your finger over the shutter button instead of pressing it and pray for the best results.

White balance is a little more difficult and you'll have to check with your manual and should allow you to adjust it. If you shoot raw, you should be able to change your white balance in the software. Good luck.

[DisneyCoralReef]

Tanks are hard to photography eh. I should post some of my photography. I'm into equine photography tho, a bit left field for this forum. I will try to make time later to post some of my most recent sessions.

Beautiful photos!