Camera Help!

[Bhu]

Hi All

Im using a Fujifilm S602Z here is the manual... http://www.fujifilmusa.com/shared/bin/FX-S602_Manual.pdf

I had it for many years but still cant take anything decent. Is it the camera or me? Am I wasting my time with this camera or can it take great shots and I'm just doing the wrong things? I bought it primarily to take pictures of my jewellery to put the images up online http://www.brilliantgems.co.uk/ in my eyes these are also mediocre and I'm not too hard on myself as I know silver is hard to take a picture of. But my aquarium should be easier! I have several photo modes and auto is no better, then there is SP, A,S,P and M to try!

I've tried a few settings but the images are never crisp or clear or are over exposed, or have flash in the glass, etc etc the list is endless. What am I doing wrong? Hopefully the pros out there can give me a few pointers. Here are a few examples...

no crisp focus on the cardinals, dark image but flash was used- yeah no joke! ha ha
ISO 800 F4

No flash, cant find the focus, although I used auto focus and then manual. ISO 800 F4

Am I doomed to taking rubbish images or is there hope? I know a bad workman always blames his tools but is this camera really not any good?

Thanks for any feedback

Bhu

 

[Bhu]

so here are some I just took using auto only and no flash. Again I just cant get that crisp, sharp quality that I'm looking for.

Not sure why one is so golden and the other white both on same settings! Photography is hard and weird for me...

Again no real focus anywhere!

and 2 zoom ins...

&

still no real focus! Is it the camera? or me?

 

[X3NiTH]

Page 30 in the manual at the bottom "Subjects Not suitable for Auto Focus" and Aquarium photography meets a lot of that criteria.

The manual does state that when having difficulty in getting focus confirmation is to focus on a different subject that will confirm focus, keep the focus locked and recompose the image keeping the distance the same. Or what I have used before is a bright torch shone into the tank to illuminate the area you want focus confirmation, your either going to have to use a tripod or have someone else hold the torch, or go full ninja and do it yourself by holding the torch in one hand and operating the camera with the other.

The problem with soft images can be down to many reasons, discounting equipment capabilities the main culprit is setting incorrect focus point or aperture for the required depth of field (or you moved before the shot), another top contender is movement artefact where too slow a shutter speed has been used and where the camera has moved while it's recording an image. When we start getting into the realms of equipment capabilities the thing you can change the most is ISO and shooting High ISO is a great way to get soft images (the better the sensor the cleaner the images at higher ISO). Things you can't change is the quality of the lens because you are using a bridge camera and not an interchangeable lens system so if it's soft your stuck with it, having said that lenses usually have an aperture setting where they operate at their sharpest and because it's a zoom lens it may change depending on zoom length.

So the general trick to getting a really sharp shot is to shoot at a lower ISO (cleaner image) at a higher shutter speed (to decrease camera movement blur) and having the aperture set to where the lens performs it's best (it's not going to be a wide open aperture). More than likely your going to need a decent amount of light to shoot fish and will probably have to juggle these settings.

You've already tried to get more light in there but the reflection is just getting in the way, if your going to shoot flash directly through the glass you can't prevent the flash from appearing in the image (unless you use a periscope), you can reduce surface scatter by having really clean front glass and if doing macro, shade the lens from above with your hand against the glass or use a rubber lens hood. You have a hot shoe on the top so you can use a flashgun, you can get it off-camera and shoot from above the aquarium (best) by using a long flash cord to attach it to the camera, if you do this you camera becomes far more capable because light or reflections won't be your limiting factor and you can shoot at Lower ISO settings and higher shutter speeds, this gives you more wiggle room to play about with much higher aperture numbers.

Use Manual everything and practice, juggle the settings until you get what you want or at least the camera giving you what it's capable of. Use a tripod and countdown timer to get shake free lower speed pictures, use lower ISO for cleaner images and close down the aperture higher than f/4 for greater depth of field and hopefully a sharper image.

 

[pepedopolous]

Basically you need more light so you can have a faster shutter speed and higher aperture (F Number). More light will also make it easier for the autofocus to work.

This is where stupidly-powerful adjustable LEDs are really useful. You can turn up the light intensity temporarily to a level that if you used it all the time, would lead to an algae disaster! If you don't have such LEDs any other extra light source will do, if the colour isn't too warm. For example you could buy some cheap second hand lights like the Dennerle Nano aquarium lights and mount them just for the photo shoot.

Your tank looks awesome anyway!

P

 

[Bhu]

Thanks guys that's a greats tart to putting me on track. I was using a high ISO of 1000, medium shutter speed and played with high and low aperture. The tank has LED lights so should be bright enough. As the 2nd and 3rd images which were without flash.

I think a tripod would be a good move with the timer used as it always has a shaky hand icon up,when ever the flash isn't used. I do have a powerful led touch I can shine in a well.

Tanks all dark now so I will try again tomorrow and report back.

Thanks again for the advice and tips. Thanks for the compliments on the tank P its coming along, as all tanks its a work in progress and evolving and developing. It's only 3 weeks old and I'm really happy with everything except the lilaeopsis brasiliensis. Well that and my photography

 

[Bhu]

Ok a new day a new approach, I still cant seem to get a good all over image of the tank, but the individual close ups are coming along. The cardinal was a bit disappointing as I was working with a fast shutter speed. The mosses are starting to show up nice.

Still blury around the edges really then another try...

a bit better but dark!

So I zoomed in a bit to see...

This already looked better, so I thought I would wait for further advice on the whole tank shots as im not sure what Im doing wrong. I used an ISO 200 Ap f2.8 and fast shutter speed I played with varying numbers from 20,15 and 10

So to the close ups...

This one was such a pity, I had waited ages to catch this large female cardinal tetra, colours are great but blurred was a very fast shutter speed at least 20! What did I do wrong?

So to the still life ha ha

Really happy with this one the back ground is nicely blurred but the moss not quite sharp enough.

Better? Im not sure!

Some of the moss and the shrimp have lost some but that flower thingy sticking out has a great edge to it really happy with that!

Then I lost it all again and don't know why! The Alternanthera stole the day!

So any further help much appreciated, especially for the whole tank shots. What am I doing or not doing that needs to be done!

Cheers

Bhu

 

[X3NiTH]

I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty to post-process an image for you using Snapseed to show what can be done (quickly) with your images to give them a little more pop. Here's is a side by side with the original image. (The image is correctly attributed to you, but If your not happy with this I can remove it).



The process used in Snapseed was Autocorrect (this neutralised out the green colour cast seen on the MagClean), Tune Image for an increase in Contrast, Ambience and Shadows, Details added quite a bit of Structure and a little bit of Sharpening, (edited using the iPad app).

1/20sec shutter speed is a very slow shutter speed, guaranteed to introduce human induced motion blur at longer zooms, (your sensor is tiny so you can get away with it a little but you do get soft images).

For shutter speeds to reduce movement blur a good rule of thumb to follow is speed = lens length, so if you are zoomed to 50mm set the shutter speed at 1/50sec, 100mm set to 1/100sec. For fish moving in a tank 1/125sec - 1/200sec will usually freeze the subject (all dependant on how fast the fish is moving).

f/2.8 is wide open so you get a very shallow depth of field (DOF), to get a wider DOF in a full tank shot f/8 and above is better. You are going to struggle to get these unless you do long exposure (slower shutter speed than your ability to counter camera movement blur), for which you will need a tripod (or any other flat stable surface you can rest the camera on to use the countdown timer), turn the pumps off and wait for plants to stop moving, then take the image. You won't catch the critters this way and to do that sharply you are going to need more light on the subject via the camera flash carefully controlled through technique or some other bright external light source like a super bright LED torch shone on the subject.

 

[X3NiTH]

......you are going to need more light on the subject via the camera flash carefully controlled through technique or some other bright external light source like a super bright LED torch shone on the subject.

As an addendum to this another alternative light in the absence of a flashgun (strobe) or source brighter than a torch for long exposure is to use another camera that does have a flash. This camera can be anything doesn't have to be digital can even be a basic disposable camera with onboard flash (doesn't have to have film in it you just want it to flash as the power for flash usually outlasts the film, even old school Polaroid cartridges can be reinserted when empty to get continued access to the flash). The point is anything bright enough to strobe you hold over the tank and expose this light while the shutter of the camera taking the long/ish exposure for the image is open (you can do handheld this way without a tripod but may require Ninja like timing and skills to operate both camera and donor flash at the same time and get a good shot). You then adjust the camera settings after reviewing the image after every shot to get the correct exposure for the donor strobe output. Doing it this way will allow cameras that struggle to get a good exposure in the available light to obtain higher shutter speeds, lower ISO (cleaner noiseless images) and smaller apertures resulting in sharper blur free images with greater depth of field.

 

[drodgers]

I haven't really read the responses so i apologize in advance if i offend anyone .
I wouldn't waste anymore time with this camera! Early cropped sensors cannot handle low light well period ! unless using a tripod and a remote trigger you cant shoot much beyond a snapshot.
The technology is too old; the quality is barely there with good light and in outdoors let alone shooting through glass.
I would invest in a newer camera that can reproduce lower light images well and use some of the information that im sure was posted to take better images.