Your marine aquarium is looking fantastic, right? Full of vibrant colour and movement.
Your coral’s colours ‘pop’ under your marine aquarium lighting and your fish are simply stunning and you want to share your marine world with friends, family and online.
So, you grab your smartphone and start taking pics to share, only to run into a bit of a problem…
All your pics have a rather dull blue hue and do not show the magnificent variety of colours you can see when looking at your tank.
This is because your marine aquarium lighting uses a very high colour temperature (e.g. 10, 14, and 20,000 K) and if your phone camera uses a standard daylight setting your pics will come out with a blue hue.
It’s frustrating but, happily, there are a number of ways to correct this.
Table of Contents
Use A Clip On Lens
Probably the easiest way to remove the blue hue is to place a yellow, orange, or amber-colored filter in front of your camera lens.
Photo taken without yellow/orange filter
Photo taken with yellow/orange filter
As you can see from the photos above, the picture taken with the filter is much clearer and with a far greater colour definition.
You can buy coloured cellophane from a craft or art store and cut out a small square sized for your camera.
This could prove fiddly though and, as you’d expect, a number of clip-on lenses have been developed specifically for taking photos of marine aquariums with a smartphone.
We use the one below, it’s very easy to use and will fit any smartphone. Just clip it to your phone so that the orange filter covers your phone’s camera lens.
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Taking Videos
You’ll be pleased to hear that using a clip-on lens has exactly the same effect when taking videos. The blue hue is removed allowing you to show off your tank’s vibrant colours to full effect.
Adjusting The White Balance
This method depends on the specification of your smartphone’s camera and will therefore not be an option on older or cheaper smartphones.
For later Android phones you will need to access the camera’s Pro mode (if your phone supports it) and adjust the white balance to 10000K.
For iPhones, it depends on the version you have, but simply google ‘white balance adjustment’ for your iPhone and follow the instructions.
Photo taken in standard mode
Photo taken with white balance set to 10000K
As you can see from the photos above, the picture taken with the white balance adjusted is both clearer and with a far better colour definition.
If your phone also has a Pro mode for Videos you can also adjust the white balance accordingly.
Using A Smartphone App
If your phone does not have the option to adjust the white balance there are a number of apps you can get that can either do this directly or simulate the process but they are somewhat hit-and-miss and will not work for videos.
Conclusion
Happily, there are a number of ways you can correct the blue hue of your marine aquarium pics and videos.
If you have a more advanced smartphone and are happy diving into the camera settings to adjust the white balance you are good to go to create some fantastic pics.
If not, simply use a clip on lens, attach it to your camera, and snap away!
Other Tips for Better Marine Aquarium Pics
Even when using a clip-on lens or adjusting the white balance, you can still do a few more things to take better marine aquarium pics.
Turn off the flash
You are shooting through glass and the flash will simply be reflected back right at the camera so always turn the flash off.
Reduce outside glare
Turn off any room lights and close all curtains and blinds to eliminate outside glare. Also, take photos with your lens as close to the glass as possible to minimize glare and reflections.
Use a tripod
Unless you have a very steady hand, it will always be easier to take better photos with your phone held steady on a tripod.
Reduce water movement
Turn off any wavemakers to keep corals from swaying in the current and going out of focus. You could also turn off your return pump to kill all movement but that’s probably overkill.