Camera & Settings for Tank & Fish Photo's

[Skirge]

What camera and what settings are you all using to get your photo's?

I use a Nikon D5000 but prefer to use it to shoot videos in 720 HD rather than take stills as I can never seem to get them right.

 

[Lornek8]

With an SLR, lens choice is as important if not more so than camera & settings. You need to get a lens that can close focus and or adjust your shooting to the focal length of the lens. A so-called "macro" lens or lens with a pseudo macro setting is useful. External flash is helpful as light levels in aquariums can be deceptively dim and supplemental lighting is often required to stop action. On camera flash can be tough to use as glare is often a result. Finally practice & simply taking large numbers of photos is often the answer. For each of those photos that turn out great, there could have been literally 100's that didn't.

 

[Skirge]

Thats the issue I am finding.. my macro lens - that my mare has at the moment - is a 70-300mm and the macro is at the far end of the zoom 270-300mm.

I am trying to use my 18-135mm and just cannot get close enough, I find shooting in sports mode has been okay, ups the ISO on its own to keep that faster shutter.
But my plecos are mainly small so I do need my macro, do you use the continuous focus ?

 

[Lornek8]

Continuous focus can be tricky if the light levels are not high enough. This again brings up the issue of the aquarium being dimmer than it appears to the human eye. Sometimes manual focusing works better than auto focus for these situations, it depends a lot on the activity of the plecs. If they remain in the open and sit still for you than auto focus might work, if not you may have to manually focus at a spot & wait for the fish to swim within range. Plecs feeding on a piece of veggie usually work well with manual focus as you can be assured that they will be relatively the same distance away.

I typically shoot everything in manual mode or at least aperature priority but then that goes back to my days of photography. I like to control what I get, not let the camera control it. One issue you get with the program modes such as a "sports" mode is that the camera is set to get higher shutter speeds at the expense of larger aperature settings which overall gives you a smaller depth of field (area of the picture which is in focus). This smaller depth of field gets exagerated when dealing in close-up/macro settings. What you end up with in many circumstances is simply the one item that the camera was set to autofocus on being in focus while the rest of the plec being out of focus. Higher lighting levels from an external flash helps here so that you can get both faster shutter speeds & smaller aperature settings thus giving you motion stopping & larger depths of field.

PS: What make/model lens is the lens you're using, might help to give some suggestions if I can look up the lens specs.

 

[Skirge]

Greta advice thanks.... I do most of my photography outdoors night shooting.. I am registered as blind and therefore find manual focus very tricky.
My macro lens is a Tamron and has a slower motor than my Nikon lenses but as I say its my macro lens.
I could I guess try live view and manual focus see how I get on, as you pointed out the pleco will stay still when feeding.

 

[Lornek8]

You're running into one of those marketing issues with camera lenses where manufactureres label a lens "macro" when it really isn't. A true marco lens gets you 1:1 reproduction ratio or very close to that. On the Tamron, the reproduction ratio is 1:2 and really what the "macro" setting gets you is a shorter focal length. With the Tamron you still need to be at least 0.95m (according to the specs) away from the subject to focus.

You could try getting a set of close-up filters. They are filters that magnify the subject through the lens, kinda like reading glasses for your lenses. Picture quality isn't perfect but acceptable for all but the most demanding folks.

The advantage manual focusing gives you is the redction in the lag you get while the camera tries to focus. In dim lighting & with moving subjects what you can get is the camera hunting for focus which gives the moving object a chance to, well, move. What yo can do to get around this is to use the autofocus to focus on an area/object where you might expect the plec to be, then while holding down the shutter button (to holf focus) wait for the fish to swim into the area. Or, you could focus first & while holding the shutter, switch into manual focus. Finally, when you take the shot, set the camera to multi-shot mode & take a string of pictures at a time, often one of the string might work out for you.

 

[Skirge]

I did debate on getting a macro filter for my 18-55mm but have spent so much on photography my wife may kill me :lol:

I must admit the "macro" on the Tamron did confuse me but I have had some good macro results with it.. non fish ones that it.

I am new to the DSLR world, always used compacts but I do love photography so the upgrade was a must.

 

[Lornek8]

Another option seeing as the D5000 is a 12.3 MB camera is to simply enlarge the shots.

 

[Skirge]

Yeah I could crop but am not a big post processing fan.. I feel like I'm cheating. :lol:

Just posted a few slideshows of a few of my photo;s in THE LOUNGE.

 

[Lornek8]

Yeah I could crop but am not a big post processing fan.. I feel like I'm cheating. :lol:

Just posted a few slideshows of a few of my photo;s in THE LOUNGE.

I was a long time film photographer & can relate to the post processing thing. My take is that if you could do it in a darkroom, which enlargements/cropping is a common practice, doing it on a computer isn't a bad thing. Even the greats, like Ansel Adams for instance, did a lot of darkroom work

 

[Skirge]

Yeah I agree 100%.. I do own photoshop and I have in the past enjoyed a bit of HDR work, it can look impressive.
But I much prefer to get the right effect in shot.

 

[Skirge]

Any suggestions for extra illumination ?
Using 1600 ISO and still cannot get a fast enough exposure.

 

[Lornek8]

Any suggestions for extra illumination ?
Using 1600 ISO and still cannot get a fast enough exposure.

What are the problems you're getting? Motion of fish? All around blurryness?
You could use an external flash or illuminate the tank using additional lights.

 

[Skirge]

What are the problems you're getting? Motion of fish? All around blurryness?
You could use an external flash or illuminate the tank using additional lights.

Yeah motion blur, even if the plecs are on veg, they still move whilst eating and even that slight movement is causing blur.
Then the more active fish are near enough impossible to capture.
I just do not want to spook them with more light, and only have the built in flash on the cam.

 

[Lornek8]

Is the veggies or other portions of the photo in focus?
Could be the light levels, can you check the photo info for the shutter speed & aperature the camera used for the photos. Could also be due to the lack of depth of field at the maginfication. The slight lag in time it takes for the camera to focus & release the shutter could allow the moving object to move out of the plane of focus. Most modern camers autofocus system accounts for this somewhat but it can suffer a bit in lower light levels & if operating at the ends of the lenses range.

Only real way to eliminate motion blur is to provide more light and or push the ISO (if the camera is capable of it). The problem with pushing the ISO is that the image quality degrades which, to me, makes it impossible to get an acceptable shot. In this case if you do not want to add more light via a lamp, the only other option is the external flash. On-camera flash has a tendancy to reflect back at the camera, especially if operating at the distance you are. If you try to take pictures off plane from the glass to reflect the flash away, you usually get distorted images due to the angle of the glass.

 

[Skirge]

I could go up to 3200 ISO but noise will be an issue, using manual focus as auto is too slow.
aperture 5.6, exposure 1/40s, ISO 1600 @ 300mm will give me a decent shot IF they stay still long enough
Thats in macro.


More light is 1005 what I need but I don't want to go shinning a torch into the tank or a lamp or something.

EDIT: Slapped myself very hard.. why did I not just use the exposure compensation

 

[Lornek8]

The rule of thumb for hand-holding lenses is 1/focal length of lens, in your case 1/300 to stop motion. Anything slower than that will introduce vibration due to the shutter and simply hand motion. Exposure comp will simply adjust the shutter speed to a slower speed, thus further increasing bluriness. Its no different than manually adjusting hte settings for a longer expsore time. There is simply no substitue for more light. The fish won't react that harshly to the light, especially if you can work out a way to provide it overhead. The only other option is to try to sqeeuze as much as you can get out of the camera & then photoshop the resulting dark pictures, though I kinda can figure your take on that.

 

[Skirge]

I am using a tripod cannot believe I didn't mention that.. I may just be being to much of a perfectionist and be over thinking it. Really appreciate all your help.. more light is needed and that is what I shall look at adding.

 

[Lornek8]

I am using a tripod cannot believe I didn't mention that.. I may just be being to much of a perfectionist and be over thinking it. Really appreciate all your help.. more light is needed and that is what I shall look at adding.

For a given amount of light, you have what is called an Exposure valve (E). To get a proper exposure at that particular E, there are fixed comibinations of aperature and shutters speed you can use. If you aren't getting the results you like at the given E, you can either:
1) Change the E value by adding more light.
2) Change the available aperatures by getting a lens with a larger maximum aperature (ie, 4.0, 2.8, 1.4).
3) Change the shutter speeds.

In that you're looking for faster shutter speeds, option #3 is out as your already as fast as you can get given the ambient light conditions & lens. Therefore you to address either option #1 or #2 to get faster shutter speeds. So, in actuality there is another option besides adding a flash/light, and that would be to get a new lens with a larger maximum aperature. These tend to be rather expensive as well as bulky so the more economical option would be to simply add more light.

 

[Skirge]

Yeah I looked at 2.8 lenses.. its a disgrace how the price shoots up.. you can pay more for a 10mm prime lens with f1.8 than for a good wide range telephoto.

(P.S. is my sig to big?)