Fish in aquariums help please...

Hertsman

Hertsman

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Name
Mark
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Im struggling to think of a harder to capture subject than tropical fish in an aquarium....

Any advice, general or specific ?

Kitbag contains :
D200
18-70 kit lens
50/1.8

On camera flash only.

Some examples of mine below, but Ive seen much much better.
What am I missing ? Kit or skills ? If kit, then recomendations please...

Toying with buying either SB600 flash or a set of AF extension tubes.




Perspocax in foreground, Joanjonsonae to rear by mark_p99, on Flickr


c3 by mark_p99, on Flickr


b4 by mark_p99, on Flickr


Female Joanjonsonae by mark_p99, on Flickr
 
flash would just bounce off the glass and cause you more problems than they cause.

The tank glass needs to be clean, brightly lit, and a fast lens. The last aquarium I went too I used my 50D with a 17-55 f2.8 on the front.
Upped the iso and got a good shutter speed and away I went, got some great results.
 
Hi Spike, I was thinking of using the flash remotely and having it aiming downwards from the top of the tank.

Ive seen some very good results using this method.
 
ah right never tried it that way, sorry I thought you where on about going to an aquarium not your own fish tank.
 
Ah, yes. I should have stated.

I have a new 600 litre Mbuna Cichlid tank with some lovely stock in it that I want to capture.
 
Would your 50mm f1.8 with the lights on not get you the shutter speed you will need?? I have taken pics of my fish in my aquarium and been to proper aquariums and never used a flash, got good results, even some arty shots. hardest part is training them to pose for you though :D
 
Yes, the nifty will give the speed, butI then end up having to make a huge crop and the IQ isnt up to much.

I know a decent Macro is the correct way, but Im skint and like tt try and do things as economically as possible.

I have a set of non AF extension tubes which give good close ups, but I just cant MF fast enough to get a sharp image.

I had another play last night using my 18/70 and shooting RAW, but Ive not had time to process these yet.
 
So I take it you can light the tank from above, not talking with a flash I am talking with just a normal lamp or even just the lights from your tank.
make the room dark that the tank is in so night time with the lights on in the tank.
Make sure the glass is spotless inside and out.
And see what that produces.

Hope you do not mind buthere are a few I took at Monterey aquarium when I was there two years ago, these where taken with my 50D and 17-55mm on the front. the room was very dark and the tanks where lit from above, it created some lovely effects but also some clear pics.


untitled (8 of 8) by SpikeK6, on Flickr

In this one you can see marks on the glass hence why it needs to be clean before you start.

untitled (7 of 8) by SpikeK6, on Flickr

The light was not so good in this tank but shooting RAW helps alot

untitled (6 of 8) by SpikeK6, on Flickr


untitled (2 of 8) by SpikeK6, on Flickr


Hope this helps, give it a go and see what you can get before spending loads on gear, Flash could frighten the fish so maybe try to stick with a constant lighting sorce.
 
Hi

I don't use a Flash,

A mate has had great results using a remote flash
 
Hertsman said:
What am I missing ? Kit or skills ? If kit, then recomendations please...
Click to expand...

Hi Mark,

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately if you're on a budget) I think the answer to your question is practice, practice and more practice - with a good lump of patience thrown in.
The kit you have should be more than up to the job, it's just a case of getting the knack of the timing, focus and technique.

Yes, an external flash from above would help you to get more light in there and to control where the light falls. That might make things easier in some ways, but IMO it's certainly not essential and on the downside unless you can position it to illuminate the whole tank evenly you'd still have to wait for the fish to swim into the area that you've selected to light and you run the risk of freaking them out and sending them into hiding after a few attempts.

:thinking: TBH I don't think a macro lens or extension tubes should be necessary at all. I'm not familiar with the Nikon 50mm, but certainly with practice the Canon one will allow you to get close enough to avoid any significant cropping, so I suspect any problems there may be a question of technique rather than kit.
How close are you to the aquarium? Is perhaps part of the problem that you're hitting focus on the glass fooling the camera into thinking your subject is too close for the lens to focus and making you step further back? Having your lens at an angle to the glass rather than square on will help you to focus through the glass rather than on it and allow you to get right up against the aquarium for shooting.

I really don't want to turn this into a "show your aquarium photos" thread, but I think the below might demonstrate what you can do with your current kit. This was taken a while back on a humble Canon 450D with the 50mm 1.8 lens, no flash and just a little cropping to tidy up composition. These Tiger Barbs are very fast and probably a fair bit smaller than your cichlids, so you should be able to get this sort of result with what you already have.

p.s. I also located an old thread from quite a while back with tips on aquarium shooting that may be of help.
p.p.s. I've moved this into one of the Talk Sections for you rather than the critique sub-forum. You should get more help here ;)

 
Possibly the most useful thing would be a rubber hood for whichever lens you're using. Press the front against the glass to seal the light out and that'll reduce any reflections from the room behind. Switch off the lights in the room and light the tank as well as possible using lights that give no WB problems when used with the tank's own lights. Not sure how well your fish cope with flash but I do know that many aquaria ask you not to use it since it can stress the exhibits (but then again, there's a difference between a few shots every so often and many every day!)
 
Clean water (run a polishing pad or spend hours in post), clean glass, darkened room to prevent reflections, flash above the tank and facing down - if using flash do start cautiously at low power and diffused. Some fish (guppies from experience) can't cope with flash. Shoot raw to adjust for lighting colour balance in post. Watch your minimum focussing distance.

I think I recognise Chopsie from UR, there's some useful advice on the photography section of that forum. I think NeilH on UR has been doing some great work with off-camera flash for aquarium photography.

Edit: basic overhead flash set-up for general aquarium photography.
 
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Great subject. I am just in the process of setting up a 4x2x2 marine tank, so hopefully i will post a few photos. Ta for the tips :)
 
Details on how the flashes were attached to the top of the aquarium..



This is an old shot, there are better trigger/receivers available now.
 
A rubber hood pressed up against the glass to cut reflections, overhead lighting and a fairly fast shutter speed. :)
 
Blimey, this suddenly got busy.

Thanks for all the tips folks. I've bought both flash and af tubes from the bay so will have a play and report back.

The rubber cup does make sense,and I do shoot with all other lights off.

It's a fascinating aspect of togging as it presents so many challenges. I love the black background marine fish shots above,but they won't look natural for my fish.
 
Tank maintenance first, clean glass inside and out and leave to settle (24 hours works well!) as dirty glass will muck everything up....

I use an off camera flash set above the tank for my fish, settings will vary depending on what you are using and depth of tank (and the size of fish you are photographing) but in general terms with my Nikon D300, (with 105mm macro) sync speed to flash, ISO set to 100 or 200, somewhere between f11 and f16 and flash set to 1/4 to 1/8th power yields me some nice results.

Camera lens at 90 degrees to the glass as I tend to find any angles lead to distortion and also don't find problems with glare/reflections off the glass thanks to the flash mounted above the tank

Of course on top of that lot is patience, fish don't exactly pose in front of the camera for you.

To demonstrate results from my setup, one of my 'lucky' gob shots, a dwarf South American cichlid (part of a large group of tropical fresh water fish) showing me his gill arches from the inside!


Andrew
 
UPDATE:
Getting better! These were taken using the smallest of my new AF extension tubes and Jessops poff camera flash. Im amazed how clean the tank glass needs to be - it looks ok to the eye, but the camera makes it look filthy!
IIRC, only numbers 1&2 needed a crop, the rest are just rezized from the RAW.



DSC_7168 by mark_p99, on Flickr


DSC_7162 by mark_p99, on Flickr


DSC_7151 by mark_p99, on Flickr


DSC_7150 by mark_p99, on Flickr


DSC_7149 by mark_p99, on Flickr




DSC_7144 by mark_p99, on Flickr
 
Well done, certainly an improvement.
- 1&2 cropped a little too much and chop off some of their tails
- How did you get the black background in 2 ?
- 4 & 6 could do with more being in focus. I also struggle with the minimal DoF, does it get smaller with the extension tube ?
- 6 is spoilt by the dirty glass but I appreciate how difficult it is. In my tank, it is almost impossible to get the glass near the bottom spotless. I have a "wire brush" type pad which works best.
 
Having kept and bred tropical fish for over 55 years and photographed them for the past 40 years I have tried many methods. Small fast fish are the most difficult and method I currently use is simple.

A digital SLR set on dynamic focussing, a 50mm macro lens, a Vivitar 283 flash mounted on the camera hot shoe and set to maximum power. The camera is set on manual with the shutter speeed at 1/60th to fire the flash and the aperture stopped down as far as possible. the exposure is found by test shooting and adjusting the aperture.

Here are a few examples using this set up.


Scissor Tail Rasbora by JENNYANDERNIE, on Flickr


Ruby Barb by JENNYANDERNIE, on Flickr


Rosy Barb by JENNYANDERNIE, on Flickr


White Goldfish by JENNYANDERNIE, on Flickr
 
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Consider using an extra piece of glass almost the same length of the tank.

With this in situ you can temporarily restrict the ability of the fish to dart to the back of the tank. It also helps with aperture settings for control of dof as you have limited the fish's ability to swim out of focus..

A smaller piece with 2 90degree sides can be used to restrict sideways movement if required..

Please note I am not suggesting a piece 1 inch larger than the fish, that would be unkind.
 
The problem with restricting the fish in the tank or using a small tank to photograph the fish is that many species lose their colour when disturbed. This is especially true of fish which show exceptional colour when in breeding condition.
 
I fire the flash from the front but at 45 degrees to the glass that works for me
 
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