Corals and reef invertebrates are so extremely intricate and beautiful that sometimes the best way to view them is in extreme closeup. The swaying of individual polyps and the details of an animal’s tissue brings a whole new perspective to the aquarium hobby, one that many unfortunately go their entire lives without experiencing. And seeing as how we are obsessed with anything and everything reef related, we never pass up the opportunity to shoot and share some detailed video footage of livestock, which happens to be corals and clams in this case. In the video above, we see a Pink Sandollar Montipora, an ORA Tridacna derasa clam mantle, a “Grapes of Wrath” Platygrya brain coral, a shot of a different clam’s inhalant opening, and finally a Sunset Montipora…all in that order and all in closeup.
The video was shot with my trusty Canon T2i and with the stock 18-55mm lens. I bet you never thought you’d see detail this up close with a stock lens. Honestly, I didn’t either. Fortunately, we discovered a setting on the camera that crops and zooms in on everything in the viewfinder. Some resolution is lost in the process, but the extreme closeup is really neat to see. And it goes to show that you don’t need a macro lens to get really close shots. There’s really nothing left to say about the reef life shown in this video, other than enjoy the show. If you have any questions or comments about aquarium photography and videography, feel free to drop us a line through our Contact Form or simply post in the comments below.
