Using my homemade top down box :)

[Anonymous]

Sanjay has a picture of it when he did his article about shooting from the top down (although he gave more credit to those with slightly less ghetto means ).

By no means all my corals, but the colonies that were easily shot

Blue polyp, green cap, with Pink Jade candle in the top

One of my first LPS, strangely was a freebe piece, the other brain (which I paid for) got picked at to death by my coral beauty angel, never touched this one.

Brown always grows so fast in my tank, but at least the tips are blue!

Acropora-Rockapora!

Tyree Bali Tricolor

The infamous Phoenix cap!

Poofiness

Its umm red and pink and acropora like

Coral that for most of its life grew on a the bottom of my tank, eventually graduated to rockstar level!

Pink/red millipora

Something about range of colors that compliment?

Lepastrea rock, the goal is to see this whole rock covered with these three guys and take the shape of the rock

Palmers blue millipora which never photographs very blue, grew from DBTC piece that was literally a tiny branch sized frag

Now here's colors that blend, nuclear green with a dark moody blue.

 

[Len]

Very nice Mike! 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, some of those are gorgeous, too. Nice pix, thanks for sharing!

 

[Ben1]

Nice shots Mike I gotta make one of those boxes myself. Nice corals too!

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you, thought I'd one up on Len showing off his designer frags that some ordinary stuff can look impressive too once it gets larger (plus they tend to grow faster ).

Ben, yeah the box is easy... the way I made it literally grabbed a plastic glad container such that the bottom is just about the size of the barrel of my camera, cut that off to fit, then glued a piece of acrylic to the top part (normally where you put the lid), it works out doubly sweet because when the lens extends it just barely kisses the acrylic.

 

[Anonymous]

8) niiiiice!

 

[Len]

I need to make myself a top down box. Stuff looks so much cooler from the top down.

 

[Anonymous]

Oooh, as others have said, some lovely shots here Mike. Particularly like the first and the Lepastrea rock.

Could you take a picture of the top-down box as well? I think your explanation was probably fine, but I'm having a little difficulty imagining it. :?

 

[Anonymous]

Small cup, bottom cut off. Glue acrylic to top part of cup.. voila! You really need to make sure to cut the bottom off first, otherwise the fumes from the glue you use (super glue rocks) will make any finger print from you touching it show up CSI style!

The silver is just paint I put on the inside to reduce any potential glare inside the cup (although if you size it right that's not an issue)

 

[Anonymous]

I like it! Simple, but effective. Do you worry about losing your grip on it and it sinking? Or is it fairly easy to handle with the camera and/or buoyant?

 

[Anonymous]

Well the opening is cut such that it's snug on the barrel of the camera, so no worries about it sinking. Even if it wasn't secure you really don't have to worry about sinking because it's basically a boat, water tight and all! Only thing you really need to keep aware is you don't tilt it too much while trying to get a shot, I purposefully hold my hand under the camera so that if I feel wet don't go down any further

 

[Anonymous]

Very ingenious! I might have to try this when I get my tank, although I don't have a digital SLR, so it might have to work slightly differently (no barrel as such for it to fit onto with my camera).

 

[Anonymous]

This isn't an SLR either... Olympus SP-500UZ, it's not a flat faced camera that fits in your pocket, it still looks somewhat like a traditional camera so it has a protrusion which I call the barrel.

 

[Anonymous]

Ah, OK. I can't remember the model of mine, but there isn't much of a barrel to speak of.

 

[Tropenhelm]

Just tumpled in here,
Hi,
sorry but I do not get the point of doing this contraption for a Camera? Isn`t the Tank already the glas in front of the lens?
or is ist just to get shots from the top down in the Tank?
Greetings
HF

 

[Anonymous]

The latter HF. It's to get the top-down shots.