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Group: Forum Members
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I've just started playing around with the Nightsea flourescence excitation photo equipment, but I've found a great trick!
If you shoot in RAW format you can shoot with halides (and, I would assume, whatever other lights you have) on. This makes focusing very simple. When you open the file in Photoshop, just play with the exposure slider and you can exclude the ambient light. My shots with the halides on have been much better than the shots without.
Good luck!
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Andy
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what was the cost of the equipment etc I was looking at there site but allot of it is unclear as far as what I need and the cost.. intresting pics though been looking at your photo's..
you bet my sweet Vortech! 
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interesting comments... I'll look forward to trying it (though I still wonder if a truer/purer pic will come from just having a wisp of indirect light (for focussing) and mostly darkness.
.Anthony Calfo
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Labman--Which equipment do you mean? Basically, to see/photograph the flourescence, you must have an light to excite the flourescence from the coral and a barrier filter to make sure you don't see the exciter light. Does that make sense? You need something to shine on the corals (flashlight, camera flash, etc.) in the right spectrum to excite the flourescence. For viewing, whether through a camera lens or not, that light will mask the flourescence if you don't block it out, so you need some sort of filter to block out that light.
So, if you just want to look at the flourescence, you need a flashlight with a filter over it to reduce the light to the correct light to excite the corals. The flashlight Dr. Mazel sells is excellent (and waterproof). You also need glasses of the right coral as a filter.
If you want to photograph, first you need a strong flash--the stronger the better. Next, he will have to custom cut a filter that will go over you flash to reduce its light to the right spectrum. Then you will need a filter to go over your lens, just like the glasses went over your eyes.
So, depending on what you want, the price is (I think) kind of up in the air depending on the equipment you have. I think my camera rig cost about $150 to fit out (I'm not really sure at the moment), but my flash unit has two flashes so I needed two custom cut filters.
But, Dr. Mazel answered tons of my questions quickly and kindly and was absolutely amazing to deal with.
Good luck!
Anthony--Welcome back! I'm looking forward to all of the new reading material. If you are interested, here's a link with my first attempts with the halides on:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=5b6dd972f237bb1f3ae170eb458188b6&threadid=1013658
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Andy
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Thanks bro  And yes... Dr. Mazel is a most knowledgeable and generous person. Seeing your RC thread, the images are a great start, but if the colors are true (enough) then you are really not getting an accurate rendition with the lights on and RAW manipulations. The Mussid and Ricordea specimens are quite familiar to me (hundreds of my own) and shooting with Charlie's equipment and lights off, the colors should be more deeply saturated. In otherwords, I don't feel like the RAW manipulations are removing the extraneous (non-FL) light adequately as if the (day)lights (on) were never there at all. And example of some quick original (untouched other than being "saved for web" sizing) images [PS- sorry the acan is a rather crappy shot... again, just some quickies here]: 
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Anthony Calfo
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| Oooh... and a cheap, shameless and uncanny timing plug for my new magazine (thanks for starting this thread): my second issue of C Journal (due back from the printer in weeks) has a huge feature spread (Photog column) on photgraphing fluorescence in reef organisms
. Anthony Calfo
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Well, if you don't mind, can I try to refine this a bit?
Here are the two acan images from the RC thread as shot, reduced in size and changed to jpeg.
As you can see, there's a lot of saturation to the color, but the overall cast of the light is very gray.
Here they are with the exposure reduced (-1.50 on each):
I think you are right, the overall light is better but the saturation is much lower.
Here are the photos with the exposure left alone and the shadows increased (22 on each):
That seems better to me. What do you think?
Thanks!
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Andy
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BTW, no problem about the opportunity for the plug. I've been excited to read the article ever since I saw that it would be in the next issue! It was your article in ... Advanced Aquarist (?) that got me interested in trying this out. Oh, and your photos on the RMRC website.
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Andy
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Thanks bro... the info too is helpful especially for folks that enjoy the finess/manipulations. I for one am not purist about using technology to improve images. The crux of my argument or rather perspective here though is that the manipulations are not needed nor are they an improvement over the unprocessed images/possibilities with the gear used as (Charlie) intended and designed it. It may be semantic or subjective... but part of me is also thinking of the folks that are already struggling to grasp the lingo and concepts of photography without adding image processing on top of that :p
.Anthony Calfo
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Sure, although I got the idea in the first place from Charlie's book, where he recommends using exposure as a way of shooting with ambient lighting on with film cameras to improve focus. I just figured that, as long as that exposure slider was just sitting there, I might as well try it....
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Andy
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