Aquarium Tank Photography

[rpcrowe]

I always shoot RAW...

I will most often use, in tricky white balance situations, a white balance target (I specifically use a WhiBal Card) and either set a custom white balance or balance my whites using the White Balance Eyedropper in Camera RAW. Or, I occasionally pick out what I guess is a neutral gray portion of the image and get my balance on that point using Camera RAW...

My question is how to get a correct (rather than just a pleasing) white balance when shooting into an aquarium tank. I shade my lens and camera using a rubber lens hood or other such device which usually does quite a good job of preventing reflections.

However, if I cannot include a white balance target and/or if there is no neutral gray area in the image what should I do? An example is this image....

I didn't really remember the colors in the above image. So, I just aimed at getting a pleasing white balance BTW: the water within the tank was somewhat murky with lots of particulates floating around...

I can often guess at the white balance in an image like in the following even though it was shot through a Plexiglas enclosure and the light within the enclosure was strangely greenish


How about using one of these?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ExpoDisc-EX...wAAOSw9hdaGFLq

Or a cheaper one like this which "might" get me within the "ballpark" as for white balance?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mennon-77-m...UAAOSwG-1WyCDY

[xpatUSA]

My question is how to get a correct (rather than just a pleasing) white balance when shooting into an aquarium tank. I shade my lens and camera using a rubber lens hood or other such device which usually does quite a good job of preventing reflections.

However, if I cannot include a white balance target and/or if there is no neutral gray area in the image what should I do?
How about one of these?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ExpoDisc-EX...wAAOSw9hdaGFLq

Or a cheaper one like this which "might" get me within the "ballpark" as for white balance?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mennon-77-m...UAAOSwG-1WyCDY

Both those items look like physical equivalents of the "gray world" algorithm used for AWB, so they should get you in the ball-park. Have you tried AWB?

Or, you could take a pet shark with you . . .

I would try the ExpoDisc which seems to have a flat surface to push up against the tank glass and prisms to collect light from the whole tank interior; OTOH, the Mennon surface is curved allowing light in from the side - even though your rubber lens hood may fix that, the filter would be not working as intended (cosine response at a guess).

[rpcrowe]

In both cases above, I seem to remember the surface of the tanks as flat - rather than curved.

I have "jury-rigged" a device to prevent reflections by using a black twelve inch diameter (about 1/3 meter) plastic salad bowl with a hole the appropriate size of my lens cut into the bottom. It seems to work when testing it shooting through a window but I have not used the rig in real life aquarium shooting...

The bowl would allow me to easily use the Expo (type) Disc...

The aquarium at which I plan to use the bowl has parking spaces close by, so carrying the bowl would be no great problem. It is light in weight (only a few ounces/grams)...

[xpatUSA]

In both cases above, I seem to remember the surface of the tanks as flat - rather than curved.

Perhaps you misunderstood "the Mennon surface is curved", by which I meant the surface of the filter, not the tank glass.

[pnodrog]

The first photo seems to have a slight magenta cast to it so a slight move of the tint towards green would help. Colour temp looks about right.
The second photo looks fine.

Unless it is critical I always head towards aesthetic/pleasing WB rather than accurate.

[dennybeall]

If you're doing some sort of forensic photography or shooting for science articles I can see getting manic about White Balance in camera. When you can use the target (grey card, etc.) you're going to get it right but if you can get it close and then fix it in post-processing why not???

[wikiking]

I always shoot RAW...

I will most often use, in tricky white balance situations, a white balance target (I specifically use a WhiBal Card) and either set a custom white balance or balance my whites using the White Balance Eyedropper in Camera RAW. Or, I occasionally pick out what I guess is a neutral gray portion of the image and get my balance on that point using Camera RAW...

My question is how to get a correct (rather than just a pleasing) white balance when shooting into an aquarium tank. I shade my lens and camera using a rubber lens hood or other such device which usually does quite a good job of preventing reflections.

However, if I cannot include a white balance target and/or if there is no neutral gray area in the image what should I do? An example is this image....

I didn't really remember the colors in the above image. So, I just aimed at getting a pleasing white balance BTW: the water within the tank was somewhat murky with lots of particulates floating around...

I can often guess at the white balance in an image like in the following even though it was shot through a Plexiglas enclosure and the light within the enclosure was strangely greenish


How about using one of these?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ExpoDisc-EX...wAAOSw9hdaGFLq

Or a cheaper one like this which "might" get me within the "ballpark" as for white balance?
https://www.ebay.com//itm/Mennon-77-...UAAOSwG-1WyCDYadobe photoshop 7.0

I can't Understand what you want to say.

[Manfred M]

Richard - tough one. Water filters the light and as you increase in depth, the reds then yellows disappear, so by the time you get even a few meters down, those colours disappear and you are really only getting blue and violet parts of the spectrum. Nicely said, even disregarding the impact of the contaminants, you are not dealing with all of the colours of the spectrum, so you can't really get a proper white balance.

Just ask any scuba diver about this effect.