A Horse Eats Shrimp...

sabbath999 · Feb 6, 2008

This was actually technically a very tricky shot, considering that the shrimp that the seahorse is chowing down on are about 1/8th of an inch long and it was sucking them down like there was no tomorrow. The distortion is from the inch thick tank glass and salt water... not all that well executed technically, but I was in a hurry and had no time to set the shot up. I saw them feeding the horses, ran over and got this shot. Tennessee Aquarium, Chattanooga.

Alex_B · Feb 6, 2008

funny title ... never tried aquarium shots, but i guess without a polariser it is complicated?

Mesoam · Feb 6, 2008

i wonder what a batter dipped sea horse would taste like

sabbath999 · Feb 6, 2008

Alex_B said:
funny title ... never tried aquarium shots, but i guess without a polariser it is complicated?

I don't use polarizers, since the light is not bright at all anyway. I take my lens, press it against the glass using a SMALL rubber lens cup that eliminates stray light. I use the pop-up flash or a bounce flash (depending).

Using a regular flash gets the light at too severe of an angle unless you diffuse it.

The tricky part is the refraction of both the glass you are looking through (especially if it is a polymer acrylic type aquarium) and the water... salt water is more difficult to shoot through than fresh.

I shoot aperture priority at the sharpest sweet spots of the lens, focus on eyes, and hope for the best.

I am certainly no expert on aquarium shots, there are much better folks here at TPF than I am who take amazing pictures in tanks... this is just what works for me.

BTW it's noisy because I was using 800 ISO on another shot (D80's are quite noisy at 800), and didn't have time to reset it since I ran across the room to get the shot.

D80, 1/60th of a second, F/11, aperture priority, 800 ISO, 105 VR Macro lens...