Tips on photographing aquariums

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tomdkat

Da Man
Nov 29, 2005
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Greetings to you all. :) I'm a newbie here so please be gentle with me. :D

Anyway, I've seen some of the pics of aquariums posted here and I've taken horrendous pics of my aquariums in the past and I'm looking for tips and tricks on taking good pics of aquariums. :)

I don't have a digital camera but am interested in getting one soon. Any info you can provide on taking good pics of aquariums would be greatly appreciated! :)

Peace...
 

SnakeIce

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May 4, 2002
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The biggest help no matter what camera would be a tripod. make sure the one you get will adjust to any point on the front glass. haveing one too short can be delt with but that is a pain.

Second is light, best would be a camera that can drive an external flash. Other wise you need to put more light over your aquaium. Unless you have a high tech high light plantd tank most aquariums are to dark to capture well.

if you go for other sources of light, some way of frameing off the face of the aquarium would help with light bleed that would affect the picture since light from a source other than the focus object detracts. Basicly you don't want light from a source over the tank to be able to shine on the camera.

then it gets down to practice and trying the settings on the camera you get. I don't have experience with a manual setting camera so can't help you on those.
 

Emg

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Jan 16, 2005
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LOL MQ !!! :laugh:

Well, get a camera that you can adjust the shudder speed on. Take the pics at night with all the lights in the room turned off and don't use a flash. Tripods are good otherwise you have to do like I do...take a zillion pics before you get one that's any good. Also, you want to make sure your camera has a Macro setting. Usually the icon for that is a flower of some type. Clean off the glass before you take your pics. ;)

Good luck and have fun picking out a new camera !! :D
 

OrionGirl

No freelancing!
Aug 14, 2001
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Some things SHOULD be forgotten, MPQ...Thanks for that reminder **shudder**

The other thing is to plan on taking 10-15 pictures for everyone that you the want to keep.
 

Slappy*McFish

Global Moderator
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Feb 18, 2002
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lmfao...yeah, I remember that guy. God, that would be embarrassing. :sim:
 

mooman

Scratch my belly Human!
Mar 8, 2005
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If you want to take pics of fish in tank, use the flash on the camera. point it down into the tank at an angle so that any flash that bounces off the front glass reflects straight out and not back at the lense. Make sure the camera is far enough away so that the fish is in focus. With automatic cameras, min focus distance is usually a couple feet give or take. A test shot of a yard stick with one end under the lense and the rest stretching away from the camera will give you the lenses min focus distance. Just look for the first number on the stick that appears in focus.

Ps, if you've never used slide film, give it a try. It's cheaper to develop, and you can choose the one or two good pics out of all the crap to acutally get prints made of. the big plus though is the unbelievable color saturation you get with it. the colors will just POP. I recommend Fujichrome Sensia 200 or 400 speed as a good quality, yet inexpensive "first slide film"
 
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tomdkat

Da Man
Nov 29, 2005
126
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Thanks for the help! As for taking the pics nekkid, I do just about everything nekkid (at least when I'm at home) so that might be a problem.... :D

Peace...
 

Marn

AC Members
Oct 11, 2005
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Hey Phoenix.. great pics was looking at your gallery .. do you belong to DPReviews ?? ... im at the Olympus talk Forum .. same name .. loved the pics of your tank..

Marn
 
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