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photos of nutrient deficiency symptoms



Steve, I read your "research ideas" posting with interest. I am in the
process of learning how best to take photos of my plants, especially their
nutrient deficiencies, of which they have many :)

In case people on the list are tooling up to contribute pictures, here are
some problems I've run into, with suggestions for how to get around them:

- Inadequate detail. Ever tried to photograph a four foot long "giant val"
leaf? Since we don't really care about esthetics when depicting nutrient
deficiencies, heck, chop up the leaf into pieces and lay them out next to
each other! If you're trying to photograph something wrong with your plant,
yank a leaf depicting the problem out of the tank, and plonk it on your
kitchen counter where you can get decent light on it and a macro lens right
up against it for some nice closeups.

- Background problems. I made the brilliant move of shooting half a roll
straight down onto the kitchen counter mentioned above.. with a macro flash
on the camera, and a reflective surface right behind the subject. My plan
here is to buy a pillowcase of approximately the same color as a gray card,
and use that for a background.

- Photo lab color correction. I'm now using a Macbeth Color Checker to help
out the tech at the lab, but as these are $40 or so you might just want to
be careful about lighting (in sum: use a flash) and ask your photo lab not
to color correct. Photo labs do a great job if they can see some skin tone
or white to zero in on, but boy howdy when presented with a giant field of
green they can wreak some damage.

Anyone have additions to this list?

I'm still clueless enough about the nutrient balance in my tanks that I'm
not qualified yet to contribute pictures to this effort. Once I figure out
which nutrients I'm running out of, I'd be happy to give photos to anyone
who wanted them.

While on the subject of nutrient deficiencies, does anyone have an opinion
on the relative merits of potassium chloride vs. potassium sulphate?

Thanks,
 -matt
  seattle, wa, usa