C & C - How to improve my aquarium fish photography

batmura

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Here are two photos I took with my D3100. This is my first post for C&C, so any advice is greatly appreciated. I took two pictures of my betta fish and would like to hear your thoughts as to how I could improve them.

I like how I captured his face, but it's not sharp enough unfortunately.

csc0753.jpg


And here's another one where I tried to capture how lively his colours are, but again his face seems out of focus:

csc0756.jpg


Also, if any of you do aquarium photography, could you share your tips. I find it extremely difficult to capture the fish as they're constantly moving around and the low light does not help with my kit lens either.

Thanks for looking!
 
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I haven't done much aquarium photography, but I do find that you have to have your lens square up against the glass to avoid reflections off the glass and distortion. The glass and the water act almost like a kind tilt-shift lens that you can't control!

I'd say the best way forward would be to get a fast prime such as a 50mm f/1.8 or 1.4 put it square up to the glass with your background composed and wait for a fish to swim into position, then click!
 
1/40 is too long exposure for such subject.
 
1/40 is too long exposure for such subject.
^This.

Get more light on your subject in order to get a faster shutter. If you have a speedlight or two that you can get off camera, that will work best. trying to control on-board camera flash with fish tanks can be a real chore. With OCF, just set it/them up so the light doesn't bounce back into the lens, and you're all set.

DOF could be a problem if you're shooting wide open because you're trying to compensate for the need to have more light too, which is the other reason you need to solve the light problem first and foremost. When you've got plenty of light, it can often work out better to back away from the tank, set aperture to get enough DOF to easily capture the whole fish, then crop in post if need be.

While these aren't photos of fish, they are fast moving subjects in a fish tank that I shot:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/226082-pepper-drop.html
 
To get 1/100 you need more light than you get in most aquariums. You need to find more light and learn about exposures. Shooting aquariums is a tough assignment due to poor light (which not only affects exposure but focusing abilities), reflective tanks, moving subjects, distance to subject, and a myriad of other variables.
 
To get 1/100 you need more light than you get in most aquariums. You need to find more light and learn about exposures. Shooting aquariums is a tough assignment due to poor light (which not only affects exposure but focusing abilities), reflective tanks, moving subjects, distance to subject, and a myriad of other variables.

Great write up you are absolutely right i agree with you.
 
Something I've found helpful is to press the lens up against the aquarium glass to produce a better shot (use a cheap filter to protect the lense.. you're shooting through glass, don't worry about cheap glass being between cheap glass and your good glass! :p). Clean the aquarium very well, inside and out. There ARE aquarium safe glass wipes that will get it shiny. Get as much light into the aquarium as possible, and shoot away!

View attachment 26765

Here is a favorite of mine shot in an aquarium. Used the techniques I told you.

Looking at yours, the biggest challenge you have is light. Your ISO is already at 3200, which is pretty high. The above image was shot at ISO 400. Here are a couple of options;

1) Invest in some high output T5 lights for your aquarium. These are very bright and produce excellent colors, for great shots, AND, will really help your live plants flourish! (That's what I use)

2) Use some really bright (300 watt) clamp on lamps above the aquarium (short term as these will heat the water! Just use it when shooting)!

3) An off camera flash fired down into the aquarium, and another fired on the side.

I will have to look through lightroom as it seems to have eaten the EXIF data off of that image when I uploaded it to Flickr, but I do remember it was ISO 400, I'll have to go back and get you the other data (It's all on an external hard drive I don't have connected right now!) At least I'm pretty sure it was 400..
 
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John27, that is a fantastic shot! I'd love read the EXIF of that picture. I've actually tried your method -- pressing the lens against the aquarium -- with a point & shoot to great effect. However, with my D3100, the camera tried to constantly auto-focus which made it impossible to keep the lens steady. Also, I already have 2 T5 lights on my aquarium. My main problem is the sharpness. I'll try increasing up to 1/100 and see what happens. Do you think if I got a 50mm 1.8g lens my chances of capturing better shots would increase?
 
I think if you got a flash off the camera on a cord and held it so it filled the tank from above you will have better results than increasing your shutter speed. At the least get a good bright work light and light the tank from above with it while taking pictures. Then you could lower your ISO and not have as much noise in the image.

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Manual focus may be the order of the day, here. Turn that AF stuff off! Use Live View and zoom in, to focus by hand.
 
^ I was going to say the same as above. I used manual focus.

Remember shooting an aquarium is not ideal. You are shooting into water, which can create weird shadows and mess with your light. You are shooting at small, fast moving subjects, and you are shooting through glass (the bigger the tank the thicker it is!) So you just need to compromise!

Also, I dug up the EXIF data. ISO was 800, not 400 (but still not 3200! And still very usable out of my T1i), shutter speed of 1/100, 55mm, f/5.6 (though a higher aperture is more desirable, as you want to be a couple stops above the bottom aperture for the sharpest pictures, at least as I understand it, still learning myself), flash EV of +2.00.
 

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