Fish photography

[gambler]

What is the best way to get pictures of your fish?
Any tips appreciated.
No advise too basic (except to use a camera)

[NJ Devils Fan]

I would suggest slowly walking toward the tank, I mean very slowly if your are looking to get a putcure of a specific fish.

[ewok]

get comfortable in front of the tank in a chair or something.... if you watch the fish regularly the fish should get used to you being there pretty rapidly, my cichilds are little beggars and run right to the front of the tank usually.

use a digital camera, maybe mine isn't the best anymore, but i always expect to take many, many pictures to get a good one or two.

[goldfries]

i'm getting my 3mp digicam this week, expect to see some pictures.

but how do you people do such good close-ups on the fish? do you have like 24x zoom or something?

[famman]

Morlez is the MAN on taking fish pictures.

Use a digital camera.

Use a tripod.

A remote or cable shutter release is best.

Use the camera's macro feature to get really close.

Get comfortable. Frequent photo sessions will get the fish used to the idea.

Use a flash. Take picture at an angle to the glass to avoid glare.

Water change and clean before photos.

Leave any man-made objects out of the photo if you can.

good luck
:)

[morleyz]

Thanks famman...but I have to say, Mojo is THE man on taking fish pictures...but here's my tips:

IME, you need to accomplish enough lighting to get good exposure with no flash. (if you use a flash, you'll probably have to adjust the coloring with photoshop, I find it hard to get the exposure just right). I usually do this by doubling or tripling up lights on the tank I'm photographing by borrowing lights from other tanks. Otherwise, table lamps do a decent job if you put them on top of the tank. You want to make sure you don't get a glare from any lights behind you...they end up like terrible "sun spots".

Other tips:

Look for high contrast zones to take the picture. In other words, if your bright colored, try a darker background, and vice versa.

I have to switch to manual focus because my camera takes way too long to AF on a quick moving fish.

Use macro if you can.

Sit right in front of the tank and expect to be there a while (1/2 the time waiting for your fish to get used to you with that thing attached to your face). I usually get 1 decent picture per 25 shots taken. Thanks goodness for digicams.

I used all of the above to get this picture, which while being just a guppie, turned out to be one of my favorite pics.

http://www.foydl.com/hobby/images/blue-guppie.jpg