Hi all,

Can anyone give me a few tips on how to photograph and/or video my cichlids? I have a 7mp Cannon digital camera and a panasonic hard drive vidoe camera but am not in any way competent beyond the family holiday/xmas/birthday point and shoot type stuff.

For didgital photography what should the settings be? I see there are various settings which I have't a clue about such as macro, iso, AiAf, IS mode etc. What technique should be used for capturing good pictures? How do you set the shutter speed? Do you sit away from the tank or have the lens right up close to it? Do you have the flash on or off? Should the tank be lit or not or should you light up the whole room as much as possible? (Similar questions for making a good video)

I spent hours trying various settings with little joy and couldn't find any articles online aimed at bog standard 'point and shooters' like myself. As a reault I end up taking 200 shots 90% of which are just blurs or have the flash bouncing right back and through pure luck have ended up with a few I am not too ashamed to publish.

There are some great shots by members here so I'm hoping one of you might take the time to write a quick guide to the basics of digital aquarium photography so more of us can show the tanks we have developed with the help of everyone here.

Regards,

Ben

the only help i can give is come at a angle for taking a pic as for settings i use every setting i have that way your getting used to what way they will come out sorry its not the best advise but its all i can offer

Daragh and Limerick Bandit amoungst others have posted great photos, any tips for the rest of us!!!!!

First thing I would suggest is read the manual front to back, I never read manuals but with a digital camera you have to. What model camera do you have?

No flash ever! Most tanks have nice light so use it!

If you want to do bog standard pointing and shooting use the auto functions, the camera will do most of the work

If you’re happy with 10% of your pics then your not doing bad anyone doing Digital photography will take thousands of photos and bin a lot of them, its digital so it costs nothing.

I would suggest using a tripod or a monopod these will cut down on camera shake weather you’re taking pictures or filming.

Make sure you have your quality settings at maximum! Its digital so it costs nothing

Night time is best when the room is darker as you don’t have to worry as much about reflections on the glass.

Here is the last pic that I took that im happy with,



Every image you take is different so they all need different settings if your using manual mode it takes a bit of time to study and learn but if you have the interest its worth doing

If you can post a few images we might be able to tell you what would help