How to take good Photos

This is not a tutorial , the title should have a questionmark . My fish photos are poor ( camera is good), can someone give me hints on the basics ;
Tank lighting , flash ? tank has two 30w 90cm tubes , this givs me an F4 1/30 sec exposure , is this the root of my problem ?
I turn off the air and filter and clean the glass , anything else?
Focusing on a Zebra Danio ? manual? will the setting with a flower help ( up close focus)?

Any help appreciated

Pjq

This assumes you are using a point and shoot digital camera with a fixed flash, if not some points will not be relevant.

Clean the glass, particularly on the outside, even the smallest marks will appear if you use a flash.

Shoot at an angle to avoid the direct reflection from the flash.

If you have manual settings option on the camera, i.e. not the green square or auto setting, you may be able to adjust the ISO setting, this is equivalent to film speed on a film camera. Depending on the camera the range cam be anything from 50 to 3200, though on a point and Shoot maybe 100-400. Select the highest you have. The higher the ISO the faster the shutter speed can be, however the "cost" is a potentially noisy photo. Try it.

Setting the aperture or F number, select the lowest you can, the lower the number the larger the aperture to let light in therefore the shorter the shutter speed and the sharper the photo. Just with ISO there is a price to pay, the lower the f number selected the narrower the depth of field in the photo, e.g. if you were photographing looking straight at the fish you the head may be sharp but the body out of focus. A higher F number and lower shutter speed would have the whole fish in focus. Play around with F numbers and see the results. To get a lower F number and fully focused fish try to take the fish parallel to the camera, so all parts of the fish are an equal distance from the lens.

Auto focusing on fish behind glass can fool most camera sensors, so manual focusing may be the way to go. It will take a bit of trial and error, focusing on something at the approx distance you expect the subject to be from the camera, then wait until the subject swims within the focus distance. Once you have set the camera at the manual focus distance to where you think will most likely spot you will shoot you can still adjust focus by moving the camera forwards and backwards, so if your subject is swimming along, but nearer the glass than you had expected, just move the camera back a bit etc.

Finally if you have any photo editing software, edit the photo and adjust the levels (white balance) because depending on the lighting on your tank, you may get some funny coloured fish.

BTW with digital the huge advantage is you can click away all night, you will get a good shot eventually, who cares if you take 50 for every 1 great shot. It cost nothing

Daragh

Cool post my friend.

I have a digital camera a Fuji 4mp whatever and I am loooking for a good camer with a fast shutter speed. What would you recommend.

That's some good advice Darragh. I cant add anything more but I completely agree with the "click away" attitude. click , click, click, click!!!


click!

Darragh,

Thanks for the tips , I'd forgotten to try a higher ISO , also found a stronger flash . I took a few through dirty glass with filter going , but the ISO 800 looks fine compared to when I last used it outside at night .





PJQ

Hey Daragh that's a top post thanks a lot.

Pj in the first photo of the guppy it looks like you have lots of Dannio fry there.Would anyone else agree??

Have you seen any yet ? (they are tiny)

Processor.

Tidied up the earlier post a little, what a wonder spell check in Word is :oops:

PJG great shots, love the Platy, he looks so aggressive

I have never kept danio, so I have no idea how small the fry are, but I see what you mean.



Daragh

HI Daragh.
I can wreck your brain when you come out tonight.
Totally useless with a camera.

Processor ,

I turned off the filter ( it is 1cm above water to give an aerating splash ) and could not see any fry . I think that it might be the filter bubbles at a slow camera speed.
I have a female Danio from Navan ( too fast to photograph) but figured that my Christmas outbreak of Ich + blue medecine + gravel cleaning would have put an end to any fry .
How often will she lay eggs ? do I just scope the eggs into a breeding net .... and wait how long before they can swim with the bigger ones ?

PJQ

If they are fry they could be just 1 - 8 days old. They are really tiny and it is difficult to see them. I was only ever able to see them if they were on the glass and that was after sitting still for about 5 - 10 minutes staring like a mad thing. There was no chance of seeing them in the tank itself.

I think they lay their eggs every 6 weeks or so...could be corrected on this. If it is fry I don't think you'll get them with a net as you probably wouldnt get them back out of it again so better off removing them with a pipette or syringe.
Better still when the mother is ready next time move her to a separate small tank with a triple layer of marbles so that the eggs fall down between them and can't be eaten. After laying is finished put mother back into main tank and wait 3 days for fry to hatch.

Did you photograph that guppy in the main tank or was he somewhere else ?

Processor.

Looking again I doubt they are fry as they are all at the same angle which would be more like to very slight camera movement. But you never know.


Daragh

Processor Darragh,
Cleaned the inside glass last night , and still can't see any fry . I only have one tank and after the stress of setting it up and the Ich outbreak ,,, I'm not ready for parenthood .

PJQ

You'd only have seen them before you cleaned as you would end up cleaning them off. Not to worry there will be more.

Processor.

good articles on aquarium photography

www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/photography_list.php

Processor ,
You are right ! I saw a 3-4mm fry on the glass earlier this week and again saw one behind some plants when I was doing a water change .
If he has survived thus far I will leave good enough alone , and look forward to eating him on good friday

arabesque ,
Thanks for a great article
pjq