Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Today In The Fishroom ~ 1/24/11 More Managuense
They're just so damn easy to take pictures. I do strive to get "something different" when it comes to the pose...if you can say that fish are in fact, posing.There's only so much you can do beyond making sure any driftwood or plants are in the photo. You are limited to the lens and the light...and to some degree...the angle. This particular tank is on the upper rack in the fishroom. Some of the photos were taken with me sitting three feet below the bottom of the tank shooting up. I have a standard tank light with two bulbs. I turned one of the bulbs off...just enough for the D3 to auto focus. Three flash units...two on top and one on the bottom pointing up from a bare bottom tank. All of the flash units were diffused.
When the pair are breeding...which seems more often than not...it's easy to get them together. If you take a look at this shot you can see how the female appears to be slightly separated from the male behind her....the caudal fin being clearly visible. This was due to the placement of one of the top flash units. The light was placed about half way into the center right (just about over the males caudal fin...while the other was in the front left of the tank.
One of the challenges when you take the photo is trying to eliminate shadows. You can see that under the chin of the male. I spent a lot of time trying to balance the lower light to avoid hot spots. In the end it really all depended on how close to the bottom of the tank the fish were.
Sometimes you can get a dramatic lighting effect when one of the fish are swimming into the lighted zone. By the way, last two shots I was sitting below the tank bottom line. (Nikkor 105mm macro lens)
Also below...and a good example of just being in the right place at the right time. I really liked this shot. If I had a do over I would have had more light on the bottom flash.
Another example of the right light at the right time. The male was chasing the female. Once again that top back light was in the right place to catch both fish. The bottom flash was a little off casting the females lower face in shadow....still, cool action shot. The fact that I was below the tank gives it a different feel.
Good example of the right amount of light...and the benefit of experimenting with different angles. Shot from below.
The male is about 13"...give or take. I wanted to get a few of these "heads up" poses from below. Believe it or not I have a trick that works 90% of the time. All I do is put the lens cap of the camera on the top of the glass. their curiosity gets them every time.
Beautiful colors.
And while I can take great care in setting up the lights, sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time. Say Ahhhh.
Glad to see you guys are back up and running.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
I cant see me entering any photo competitions Just stunning M8.
Regards
C
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Thanks for sharin man and keep 'em comin.
Mick...
Follow me up to Carlow
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Nice Photos, I see you keep artificial Plants in with them?
Morrell Devlin, is there an Irish connection?
Kev.
All of the plants are artificial. I discovered a long time ago that anything live either gets destroyed, shredded or eaten. These are all silk from the home decorating store.
All of my tanks are painted with a black background. That's the first step. The second is the lighting set up that I use. If you are familiar with photography basics...the aperture that I use to take these shots is very high...meaning it requires a lot of light. If you were to take a photo without a flash, the aperture (f22-f32) the background...and for that matter the rest of the tank...would be black..totally under exposed. The high aperture and very low ISO gives an added benefit of capturing more detail, color and a very broad depth of field. The flash units are all situated to light a particular area of the tank. I simply wait until the fish are in that range.
Kev...as my grandfather Patrick Brennan used to say...I'm as Irish as Patty's Pig.
Thanks for the kind remarks.
Please Log in to join the conversation.