It may seem as easy as just the simple snap of a shot and there you have your photo, but it might not quite turn out the way you expected it to be. Taking photos of your saltwater aquarium could be quite complex. Here are a few tips and tricks to better the photography of your aquarium:
1. Nothing in your reef tank has a neutral colour. Most of the things are very colourful, especially if you have various amounts of corals in your tank. In order for your picture to be good, you have to manually set the white balance on your camera, because it might not auto-set the white balance with all the different colours that you have in there. You also have to set the colour temperature of your camera, because having lights above your tank will result in very blue pictures.
2. When you take pictures of your fish or just your aquarium in general, be sure to use only one type of light. If you have different lights shining into your aquarium, for instance Metal Halide and Fluorescent, you should turn one of them off, in order to not have a picture that has two different colours from the top to the bottom. Fluorescent lights give the fish a more highlighted look, so I would recommend that you put on the fluorescent lights, if you are aiming or high-quality photos which consists of shiny, beautiful fish.
3. If your camera has the ability- shoot in RAW mode. A camera RAW image is an unprocessed photograph, captured with a digital camera. It contains the raw image data captured by the camera’s sensor, saved proprietary file format specific to the camera manufacturer. By using this mode, you can easily fix photos that don’t look so good later. 
4. If it happens that the lighting situation changes in the process of shooting, you have to make sure that you re-set the white balance of your camera.
5. For high quality photos, it is recommended that you switch of your circulation system for a little while (only the time that it will take you to take all the pictures that you have in mind) so that the corals are still, and you can easily take snaps of them while they aren’t moving.
6. Turn off your camera’s flash, because it will reflect on the light and you will end up with a black photo. If you want to shoot with the flash on, you should set the white balance of the camera to match the flash’s temperature. There are benefits of shooting with a flash, such as extraordinary colours and sharpness. Your corals, however, will not have a fluorescent shine under the flash, so keep that in mind if you want to take pictures of corals.
7. If your tank is in a room which gets a lot of light, make sure to close the curtains or the door. This will help prevent reflections of other things such as doors, windows, etc, on the surface of the glass.
8. If you have a macro lens, it will definitely come in handy! This lens will not pick up on anything that is stuck to the glass, because it focuses so much on the focal point, that the algae or any other dirt marks on the glass will become irrelevant.
These tips are to ensure that the outcome of your photos is crystal clear and of high quality. By following these simple tips, you will be guaranteed a beautiful collection of photos in no time!
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