How To Capture The "Glow"?

[Nikon_Guy]

Other than taking timed exposures under blue moonlights or actinic, I have a dickens of a time capturing the fluorescence of some corals. This one is a hydnophora sp. otherwise known as a green horn fluorescent coral. Under 14k’s the florescence really pops, but for some reason my camera just doesn’t capture it. This picture is the best I’ve been able to come up with.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to better capture the “glow”?

[IMG][/IMG]

[raycityboy1]

I captured mine using 4-5 super actinics. Also a $12.00 4 ft black light bulb took amazing pictures. you can see these "super flourescent" pics at http://photos.yahoo.com/raycityboy1

[raycityboy1]

oh and don't use a flash

["Umm, fish?"]

I'm just putting an order in for camera equipment. I already have the flashlight and goggles. Nothing else I've tried compares.

http://www.nightsea.com/

[astrogazer]

You'll have to balance your white to the temperature you want to 'see'.

[astrogazer]

I meant to add that this is most easily accomplished if imaged when only the flourscent lighting is on.

ie:




Most people are actually having the reverse problem.

[Nikon_Guy]

Originally posted by raycityboy1
I captured mine using 4-5 super actinics. Also a $12.00 4 ft black light bulb took amazing pictures. you can see these "super flourescent" pics at http://photos.yahoo.com/raycityboy1

Very interesting indeed. Thank you for the link.

[Nikon_Guy]

Originally posted by astrogazer
I meant to add that this is most easily accomplished if imaged when only the flourscent lighting is on.

ie:

Most people are actually having the reverse problem.

Thanks astro, I am able to get the "glow" when using actinic only with a slow shutter speed. Try as I might under the MH's however; I have not been able to capture the coral as it looks to the naked eye. Guess I'll continue to play with the white balance and see what I can accomplish.

Thanks for the input.

[astrogazer]

Your MH lighting will overpower your actinic to such an extent that it will be difficult to balance to the K Temp you desire w/o blowing away entire spectrums. In photography of any subject matter, if you want to really saturate the colors you'd want to shoot slow, some of my saturation shots are 10, 20 and even 30 seconds or longer.
In available light photography and w/o filtration you will be limited with respect to a range of balance while still maintaining the ability to make the image look natural. The trick is in learning how to faithfully reproduce what you can 'see' under the given conditions.
I'm not sure I really helped much, digital imagers are kinda akin to shooting slide film in that there is limited latitude as opposed to negative film in which you could abuse the exposure and still pull desirable results ... sorry for the slight rambling ...

[143gadgets]

^ I couldn't of said it better.

[Nikon_Guy]

Which is why, almost weekly, I threaten to go back to film.

[astrogazer]

Naaa... don't do that, digital is a wonderful thing ... just keep working it. Do you shoot in RAW? Do you have a RAW converter? Do you have and use Photoshop, or even Elements?

[Nikon_Guy]

If it’s going to be something that I plan on printing I do shoot in raw and have a converter. For web based stuff I don’t bother because of file size and time. After all how much do you need for 72 dpi?

I use photoshop 7. Can’t talk myself into spending the money on CS.

You have a point on the digital thing. However, it really bugs me that I spent over twenty years learning film, how light reacts to it and even how light reacts to different types of film and even different brands of the same types of film and then one day “poof” all that knowledge becomes useless.

What really bothers me is when I see a kid lighting something really wrong and mention something and the reply is “No biggie, I’ll fix it in photoshop.” CRINGE