How To Take Pictures Of Your Corals With A Cellphone (android Or Iphone)

[Quartapound]

Hi guys, I'm posting this because most, if not all the coral shots taken by hobbyists with their cellphone cameras stock app leave a LOT to be desired.... While there's a few of us who take the time to use a REAL camera and set white balance properly, the majority of us simply pull the phone out of our pockets and snap away... there's one problem with this:

they're usually WAY too blue!!... the reason is simple : the camera app that comes with our phone has NO IDEA what to do with the blue light coming from our aquarium lighting.

Simple solution: Use a third party camera app that lets you set the white balance manually, and max it out (usually 10,000k is the upper limit...) you'll be amazed how much better your photos look.

Here's an example:

Stock Camera App:

Third Party Camera App(with custom white balance set to 10,000k):

...pretty amazing difference isn't it? The ONLY difference in those two pictures was the app used to take the photo.

SO!... No more excuse for all those BLUEEE pictures!

Wondering which app to get? here's a solution for you Android or iPhone users:

If you have an Android phone this is what I use... it's free
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hecorat.camera

If you have an iPhone this should do the same thing, I have no direct experience with it though... it costs a few bucks, I can't seem to find an app that does the same thing for free on the App Store lol
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/camera+/id329670577?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=4


I hope this is helpful to some!!

 

[zoomster]

Quite the difference!
Thank you for posting this info quartapound!

 

[Deptron]

Do you always want to set the white balance as high as you can or does it depend on how blue your lights are?

 

[Quartapound]

Do you always want to set the white balance as high as you can or does it depend on how blue your lights are?

Well the app that I'm using the white balances limit is 10000K, even our 'whiter' fixtures are usually higher than that... so I assume setting it to 10000k would probably be a good idea for any type of reef lighting, but I encourage people to experiment!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Deptron]

Ok....so the white balance setting is telling your camera what temperature of light your subject is being lit with so that it can compensate accordingly???

 

[Quartapound]

Ok....so the white balance setting is telling your camera what temperature of light your subject is being lit with so that it can compensate accordingly???

You got it! Many point and shoot cameras won't let you set it by Kelvin, it will be daylight, or indoors, etc... having access to Kelvin gives you complete control.

An even better way to do it would be using raw mode if your camera supports it, then you can adjust white balance in post processing... instead of your camera making the decision at the time of the picture being taken it saves all of the data required to adjust white balance into the photo so it can be adjusted later... Allows infinite tweaking (I like Adobe Lightroom to accomplish this). But now we're talking about DSLR features.

Edit: ... some cameras will also let you set a custom white balance, where are you take a picture under the same lighting as your subject of a completely white object, usually a sheet of paper, then you use that picture to set the white balance which tells the camera that that picture should be white, and it adjusts every picture taken after that accordingly

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Deptron]

It's all starting to make sense now....thanks!!!

 

[Brent Silva]

That looks way better thanks for the tip


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[zoomster]

Hey! This says my "device is not compatible with this program" ???
I have a second gen S4, so what gives???

 

[Quartapound]

Hey! This says my "device is not compatible with this program" ???
I have a second gen S4, so what gives???

Which version of Android are you running... Requires 5.0 or higher

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[zoomster]

5.0.1

 

[zoomster]

Snapdragon 802 quad processor with warp drive capability of warp 10.9

 

[Quartapound]

5.0.1

it said the same thing on my Nexus 9 tablet for some reason (it's runnin 6.0.1)

you can force it to install by downloading the .APK from outside the Play store... chances are it'll work just fine

use this link https://download.apkpure.com/apk1/M...36fa0b2574f6d9ba56a6cf93&p=com.hecorat.camera

you may have to allow your device to install apps outside the play store (easy to do, it'll pop up asking if you've never done it before)

 

[zoomster]

Which I haven't. Lol

 

[Quartapound]

Which I haven't. Lol

its easy. just gotta check a single box in the settings (when you try to install the popup has a button that takes you right to the settings page you need to adjust)

 

[zoomster]

Ok gonna give it a try.
Just a heads up for you. I am a wee bit of a techno-dummy. Lol

 

[zoomster]

Quartapound was right, both pics taken with just my "blue plus" lights on.
Top pic is with the stock cell cam and the second pic is with a downloaded app which I set the white balance to its highest level.
Thanks for this little nugget of info @Quartapound.

 

[mmatt]

awesome!!!! Downloading as soon as I'm done typing this!

 

[Nighthawk26]

How high did that app let you set the kelvin? THe camera APP he suggested to me let me preview the pic up to 10k before taking it. That pic looks higher than that still.

 

[zoomster]

Ahhh the downside.
It did not give it in Kelvins. It has more like a sliding scale.
I had estimated it to be at least 10k possibly higher. Like 12k?
What would be your guess? Lol