Photography

[alchemist]

Anyone have any tips on photographing tanks? Is it ok to use a flash or does that stress out the fish?

Thanks in advance

 

[Truck]

know your camera better than your best friend, practice, practice, practice

 

[lordofthesea]

block out any outside light. it wrecks the pictures - shut the curtains

make sure there's no algae on the glass

put in a bit of food to make them livelier

 

[waterdrop]

sigh, photography, even harder than planted tanks...

FWIW, there's a guide over in the "Member's Aquarium and Fish Pictures" called "Taking Great Fish Photos (How To)" and there are other great posts to be found from over the years is you do searches.

Note that the guys who take photos for the aquarium magazines, when you see them in real life, are like those fashion photographers with thousands of dollars of equipment.. big Nikons with big lenses, remote flash equipment, the whole nine yards.. so don't get down on yourself. Practice and effort can produce good results, we've seen here.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[oswoldy]

Have a look at this thread

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=19038

If you do put food in DONT take the pictures immediately as it will just look like the fish are gasping for air at the surface. Leave it a minute or two so the fish will be out looking for food.

Mike

 

[Mikaila31]

I don't suggest flash, unless you have one of those remote or diffused ones. My crappy camera has a pop up flash, all it does is reflect off the glass. I've watched people take aquarium pics with remote flash and normally they put it on top of the tank so it flashes down into it.

And like already mentioned make sure the room is dark, any external lights sources make for reflections on the glass.

 

[alchemist]

Thanks for the pointers - I will experiment

There is a trick I learnt for pop up flashes which is to put a paper napkin over the flash to help diffuse

 

[oswoldy]

There is a trick I learnt for pop up flashes which is to put a paper napkin over the flash to help diffuse

Dont do it too much in quick succesion though as the flash produces quite a bit of heat and if it cannot dissipate you will blow your flash tube.

Mike

 

[waterdrop]

Mikaila wrote:

I've watched people take aquarium pics with remote flash and normally they put it on top of the tank so it flashes down into it.

Yeah, that's the most common, especially on the go. I've seen those photographers couch down holding the camera with the left hand and then stretch out the detachable flash on a springy cord with the right hand until the flash is directly over the bare tank water pointing down and then they shoot.

For more serious variations they put two slave flash units on tripods with big white screen diffusers on each side of the tank and then sometimes a small diffuse light at the back of the tank and nothing from the front. Usually the room is totally blacked out. (I'm not into photography, this is just my uninformed observation.) They also use hair dryers to make ripples in the water surface!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Mikaila31]

Yeah I was watching them at a fish show. I have my little 3.2mp point and shoot camera. I got some decent pics, but some of the other people there had those huge camera's with the detachable lenses/flashes and stuff. Wow! They were really into it. They would have a friend or someone hold the remote flash at the right angle, then get really up close to the tank and drape a towel over the camera and their head. And take pics of the tank from their little dark place under the towel.