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This is
an old article about Alf's way of taking fish photos.
A new article is "on the way", but may still take some time before
it's finished.
”My way” of taking fish photos!
This is not a description of how to take photos
of aquarium fishes, it’s just an account of the way I do it. Don’t look
at this as ”THE WAY” to do it but if you find some useful tips, you’re
welcome to try them! |
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The Aquarium:
Yes, I do use a photo aquarium, or to be honest, two.
The reason for this is that we don’t have the possibility to arrange
every aquarium in a way that makes it possible to take good photos of
the fishes. Instead we tend to arrange our aquariums so that the fishes
are comfortable and breed. My photo aquariums are 36 cm wide, 45 cm deep
and 20 cm high, our “normal standard” for 2 aquariums on one shelf and
they contain about 25 liters of water. About 10 cm from the front I have
glued some strips to take a glass plate, to separate the front from the
rear part of the aquarium. In the front part I put the fish that I wish
to take photos of and in the rear part I have the plants that act as
background. On the bottom I have black, coarse gravel, that doesn’t
reflect. The first sort I used lit up like a starry sky when the flashes
were fired and it wasn’t the effect I was looking for. :-) |
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Filtration and cleaning:
One of my biggest problems has always been getting the water free of
pollution and dust etc. and I’ve tried several variations of filtration.
The slightest pollution shows up on the photos!
Earlier I used an Eheim 2211 external filter that yields about 300
liters/hour to each aquarium, and that wasn’t sufficient :-)
I have continued to test different sorts of filters and at the moment
I’m using a Vortex diatom filter to get rid of, as much as possible, the
dust and other small particles. This filter seems to do the job, at
least at the moment. I have also tried an under gravel filter but when
one has a very active fish in the tank, it churns up much of the
pollution that has collected in the gravel. That wasn’t the idea!
Before I start shooting I always clean the front glass, both on the
inside as well as the outside. I usually clean the inside the day before
I start taking photos, so the filter has a chance to remove any
particles that get disturbed. For the inside I use a “makeup sponge”,
because filter floss tend to leave threads in the water. On the outside
I use a good window cleaner with a soft cloth. I don’t think there is
anything more frustrating than having a good picture spoiled because of
some spots on the glass. When one has sometimes experienced this, one
learns to be more careful with cleaning the glass :-) |
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Lightning:
For the plants I use a “normal” fluorescent-lamp at 30 watts, which goes
over both of the aquariums. The same lightning is moved towards the
front when it’s time to take photos, to get enough light the set the
focus.
To get enough light for the photos, I use two or three flashes. I have
also tried to use different kind of lamps, but in the end it always got
to warm in the aquariums. |
At the beginning I only used one
flash but I found that I almost always got projected shadows on the
ventral and anal fins of the fishes with this lighting. I then got
another flash, which I also placed at the front. This helped against the
projected shadows but now the background got too dark in proportion to
the fish. With the help of a third flash these differences got smaller.
The position of the flashes varies a bit. Most of the time I place two
flashes at the front, angled above and from the side and a third flash
from behind, directed forward, to light up the background.
For a long time I had a problem I called the “Amietisyndrom”, because it
became very obvious when I tried to take photos of Fundulopanchax
amieti. This problem showed itself in the way that some blue, green
or turquoise colors were completely wrong, they could become anything
from greenish to red-brown, whilst other colors where correct (See the
examples). I had this same problem with some other fishes as well, for
example Nothobranchius cyaneus, Aphyosemion spec. “Oyo, RPC
91/8” etc. but I first noticed it with Fp. amieti because it
is VERY obvious here.
Thanks to some tips from good friends, I managed to solve the problem.
With the help of a flashlight I did some tests and I could see
everything from the “correct” to the “incorrect”
color, depending of
the angle of the flashlight! By moving one of the flashes to above the
aquarium, the problem was solved.
It has taken me quite some time to find a way to get the flashes to stay
were they should be and at the same time be able to easily move them. |
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The fact that I use two aquariums
didn’t make it easier. After several tests I found that Manfrotto’s
“Magic arm” does the trick of holding the flashes in place. To move the
flashes between the two aquariums, I have mounted these “Magic arms” on
a rail, originally made for a sliding door. This way I can easily move
the flashes back and forth between the two aquariums. |
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”Film” or Digital:
A question that arises when discussing fish photography, is which film
to use. Or should I use a digital camera? Because one of my purposes has
always been to be able to show the pictures to those interested, the use
of color negative film, to get color prints was immediately discounted
by me. Remaining is slide film and digital photography.
For a long time I used a SLR camera, together with slide film but I
never enjoyed waiting for the film to be developed. I especially
remember one time when I spent the whole weekend taking fish photos, at
least 15-20 different species/strains and I felt quite satisfied when I
sent the 7 rolls of film for developing. I must say that I didn’t feel
satisfied when I saw the results, because I had unintentionally changed
a setting on the flash, and almost all of the pictures were too dark.
Out of these 7 rolls of film I got 2 usable well, almost usable
pictures!
This made me try the digital cameras more eagerly, with varying results.
The first digital camera I bought was a Nikon Coolpix 900, and it worked
quite well for “ordinary” photos but I never could get any good fish
photos with it. I also tried using a Nikon Coolpix 950 but I wasn’t
satisfied with this either. To be restricted to the use of built-in
flash is definitely a limitation.
When Canon released its G2 camera I immediately bought one and this time
it was better. Now I was able to use an external flash. But the auto
focus was too slow, so I had to use manual focus, and that wasn’t
optimal. When I was taking photos of the larger Malawi cichlids it
worked almost all right but when it comes to taking photos of killies I
still used my old SLR. At least I now was able to use the same flashes,
because my SLR was a Canon EOS.
Of course I glanced furtively at Canon’s EOS D30, one of the best
digital SLR at the time, but the price was not so compelling and the
resolution wasn’t as high as I wished. When Canon released the EOS D60 I
just had to test if it was working as well as my ordinary SLR. Since I
could use the same macro lens the test was soon on its way and now it
felt great. I had the same “feeling” as with my ordinary SLR but with
the advantages that I could see the result immediately. Now there was no
return! I just had to pay all the thousands of Swedish kronor and go for
it. Today I use the digital SLR camera for all my fish photos and for
almost everything else as well. |
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More about the technique
Camera:
As I already said, I’m using my Canon EOS D60 almost exclusively.
Lenses:
My favorite lens for fish photos is a 100/f 2.8 macro lens. It does
have it’s limitation in the small dept of focus at f 2.8, I almost never
use it at aperture f 2.8, I tend to use f 8 or f 11 most of the time.
One of the reasons that the 100 mm macro lens became my favorite is
that I don’t have to get quite as close to the fish as I would have to
with a 50 mm lens: this way I don’t scare the fish so easily. If it’s
small fishes that I’m taking photos of I have to be close anyway but
with bigger fishes I can move away a bit.
My camera has a 1.6x lens magnification, it helps when I take photos of
small fishes. My 100 mm macro lens acts as a 160 mm lens when fitted to
my D60.
Most of the time I try to make the fish fill as much as possible of the
frame, of course without excluding anything of the fins.
Lightning:
To be able to use aperture f8 or f11 it takes a lot of light!
If one at the same time wishes to avoid projected shadows and other
nuisances, one needs several sources of light. It’s not enough with one
powerful flash, because then the fish will be unevenly lit up. This I
learned the hard way …..
Today I use 3 Canon Speedlite 550 EX flashes, with a ST-E2 wireless
management system.
All three flashes are mounted on the same rail, for easy movements
between the two photo aquariums.
Tripod:
I have tried different kinds of tripods, but the one that suited me best
was a monopod. At the moment I’m not using any tripod or monopod. On the
other hand, I use a comfortable office chair on wheels, which makes it
easy to move around.
Auto focus:
Gladly and most of the time I use auto focus! It’s not always that the
camera is fast enough and then it has to be manual focusing. To make the
automatic focusing work as well as possible, it’s necessary to have a
lot of light. And of course one needs a good camera. If one doesn’t have
both of these, it might be better to go for manual focusing from the
beginning.
File format:
ALL my fish photos are taken with the file format RAW. This is, as the
name suggests, a raw format and the camera doesn’t interpret the signals
from the processor at all, it just saves the information to the memory
card. With this file format I can change a lot of things afterwards in
the computer, like color temperature, exposure compensations, contrast,
sharpening and even other things. In my computer I also convert the
pictures to JPG for the web and in some cases to TIFF so they can be
printed in some Killie newspaper.
To get as sharp and ‘noise-free’ pictures as possible, I use as low
sensitivity as possible, in my case ISO 100. |
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”Tips & Tricks”
Anyone who has been into taking fish photos, or any other hobby, learns
some tricks on the way. Here are some of “my” tricks. Some I think I’ve
found out myself and others I’ve “stolen” from someone smarter then me
:-)
Why re-invent the wheel, it’s working great, or ……..
When I started to take photos of fishes I got a quite a few photos where
one could see my hands or fingers as reflections in the front glass.
This was solved by putting a black, matt paper board almost at the front
of the lens. Of course I didn’t get it right the first time but nowadays
I use a black “scenery cardboard” that I bought as A4 size. After
cutting hole for the lens in the middle of the board, I use a scissor to
cut off anything not necessary. It should hide what’s necessary, nothing
more!
Talking about reflections in the glass, I got more than a few pictures
“destroyed” by reflexes in the glass, both from flashes, other aquariums
and from windows. After a couple of tries, I now use dark window shades
and even cover aquariums that might give reflexes. Flashes are a
different kind of problem, which might best be solved by trying
different placing of the flash units. I haven’t solved this completely
but it’s not a big problem at the moment.
Sometimes one hasn’t thought everything over before starting to take
photos and afterwards, when looking at the results, one can sometimes
see strange “stripes” or “dots” as reflections in the glass. More than
once these “stripes and dots” have come from my clothes!
Nowadays when I’m taking fish photos I always wear a black T-shirt and
jeans. It’s neither difficult nor uncomfortable to wear this kind of
clothes and I avoid some reflections.
I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I say it again. CLEAN THE GLASS, both
the inside as well as the outside. I’ve had to throw away LOTS of
pictures because of stains on the glass of one kind or another. It’s
incredibly “unprofessional” and completely unnecessary not to take care
of this before starting. If one visits someone else it might be a
problem to clean the inside but there’s no excuse for not cleaning the
outside. I’ve said it before, but I say it again. CLEAN THE GLASS!!!!
How many pictures should one take of a particular fish?
I have always believed in the principle of taking many pictures, and
then throwing away the bad, or not so good, ones! While I was using
slide film, I couldn’t take an “unlimited” number of photos of the same
fish, so most of the time I only used to take 10 to 36 pictures of the
same fish. With the digital technology there’s no extra money involved
when taking extra pictures, so it’s not that unusual that I take more
than 100 pictures of one fish. On some occasions it has taken several
days to get these pictures but on other occasions it’s been done in an
hour or so.
One should not forget to delete the rejected pictures, because no one
would want to see them anyway and soon enough the disc will be full
anyway. :-) I usually save the 2 to 6 of the best photos of each fish.
If I get a better photo later on I might discard some of the photos that
were saved earlier on. Sometimes one doesn’t get ANY acceptable photos
at all, even after several days, and then one has to give it up for the
moment and try later. Hopefully it will be a success story the next
time. |
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Choice of fish:
There are lots of different reasons for wanting to take photos of a
species or an individual. Sometimes I would like to take a “portrait” of
an individual and other times one would like to take a “species photo”
to show what the fish looks like.
When taking a “portrait”, the sky is the limit, or maybe more precisely,
the imagination of the photographer is the limit but the fish might also
have something to say about that. Here the photographer really can give
it his/her best shot and try to figure out new and untried ways of
taking great photos. Sometimes this is really inspiring and funny. For
example, if it’s egg laying tooth carps, why not show that our fishes
really have teeth. Show that it’s not only the piranhas that have big,
dangerous teeth :-) |
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When it comes to “species photo” of a
species or a strain, I try to get the fish to show itself from the best
side, who would like to see, for example, a Rivulus standing or
hanging in a corner, with all of it’s fins “glued” together?
If I get to choose and that I do, I choose a fish that really shows off,
rather then a scared little one in a corner. If one has more then one
fish of a species/strain to choose from, it might be a good idea to pick
the one with the best fins and the one in best condition. If none of the
fishes is in good condition, it might be better to wait until they or
their offspring are. If it’s not possible to wait, for any reason, a
picture of a fish not at its best is of course better then no picture at
all!
Yes, I admit, it IS great to have a wife that breeds a lot of fishes and
who can set aside an aquarium for just a couple of fishes. This way the
male doesn’t get the top of his fins bitten off and the pair can grow
and develop nicely. When they are fully grown one can hope that they
also have nice fully developed fins and if one is really lucky, they
also like to SHOW them :-) |
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Time:
How long a time does it take to get a great picture of a fish? I mean, a
photo that one is really, really satisfied with? I’m sorry, but I can’t
answer that question, but generally I can say that it takes MUCH more
time that one has expected :-) On some single occasions I’ve got a great
picture almost immediately after putting the fish in the tank but that
isn’t often. I should guess that it’s happened to me maybe 3 or 4 times
and I have made a number of tries ….
Sometimes it has been done in a half an hour or an hour but most of the
time it takes longer, at least for me. It has also happened more than
once that it has taken several days, without getting any acceptable
picture. These are the times when it’s just as well to put the fish back
in its own aquarium and wait for the next time.
Some species/strains are easier then others but I think that depends
more on the individual than the species. But on the other hand, there
are some species that I have to think more than twice before starting
with …..
As a conclusion, I would like to point out that it’s FUN to take photos
of ones fishes, even though it takes some time. Hopefully one gets to
see the fishes at their best and one gets the evidence to show it! :-)
Good luck with your own pictures! |
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This article has earlier been published
in the British Killifish Associations magazine.
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