melev
Back from Baltimore, Maryland
by
, 04-26-2010 at 01:34 AM (6290 Views)
Over the weekend, I flew out to speak to the Chesapeake Marine Aquaria Society, www.cmas-md.org . It was a lively group, and gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my new camera gear in earnest. I almost feel like a newbie as I try to grasp what the D90 can do, especially with the new lenses.
I visited a few LFS (local fish stores), attended the all day event and spoke about pests, and wrapped up the day with a visit to a member's home to see his tanks. I also visited the downtown scene on Friday evening, so here are some of the pictures I liked the best of the nearly 500 I shot. While I did use the external flash a little to learn how it worked with the camera settings, none of these pictures were taken with a flash.
To keep it reasonably, images are resized for web. Some of the colors may not be perfect, but are pretty darn close to what I saw in person. The three lenses I shot with are all Nikon: 18-200mm, 105mm Macro, and a 50mm f/1.8 AF. The last one was a gift from Jessy, and she's been asking me if I'd used it several times since I got home from MAX. Yesterday was the first time, and I was shocked at how good that tiny thing was. It's quick, takes great shots (even in moving vehicles), and captured fish nicely while shooting freehand.
Taken with the 18-200mm lens:
This one looks like it came from a real reef, not an aquarium.
Look at the underbelly of this Cleaner Shrimp and you'll see she's carrying (bright green) eggs.
Need some Majanos?
This one was pretty strange. Each 5g container is a quarantine set up, which drains into the bottom drawer of the stack of drawers. A 5micron carbon filter processes the water, which is pumped back up to the 5g jug with a Maxijet pump. That's a huge puffer in there!
Seahorse (possibly H. erectus)
This Gigas clam is sitting on a salt bucket lid, which should help give you a sense of scale. The Bengaii cardinal fish are tank raised.
At another store, this cascading set up was neat to see.
Coral Banded Shrimp
This octopus was a mere $69. Not that I have a spot for it, but it was an active guy and I'd have loved to buy it.
They had Garden Eels for sale!
Porcelain Crab - not the kind that hosts in an anemone.
From the Chesapeake Bay area...
I use this brand of sugar for ice tea, whose headquarters is located here.
Those are real people drawing in the sails due to pending weather the next day; not mannequins.
Evil Mark of Phyto 2, taken with the 50mm lens from a reasonable distance with no flash. Pretty darn sharp, right?
In front of the member's home, this type of Birch tree had bark that was peeling off in a distinct way. I don't recall seeing anything like it before.
Taken with the 50mm lens:
Flame Angel
Black clowns
Skunk Clown and Christmas Wrasse
Frogspawn
Taken with the 105mm Macro lens:
Sunset monti
Pink Lemonade colony
Montipora sp.
Micromussa perhaps (unsure)
Deepwater acro - note the red bug near the center bottom area
Blue tort
Golden dwarf eel
Pseudochromis elongata, a reclusive fish - peaking out from under a meaty coral
I like the electrical section, secured in a way to keep everything dry & safe. This picture is the only one taken with a flash.
There are lots more, but these were probably the best or my favorites from this batch. Using a tripod would have been even better, but that isn't always practical. I'm very impressed with what this camera and its lenses can do, but my camera bag definitely got heavier by comparison to my D70s set up.
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