Aquarium Fish Macros

[tomcat]

These were some of the fish pics taken with the Olympus E-330 and ZD 35mm and 50mm macro lenses.

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[JimmyH]

Wow good stuff. Very sharp details on the fishes. Did you use flash? Lighting is quite OK too. Great job

[hirowen]

Wow! I love fish macro. Especially frontosa my favourite fish! Wonder how you capture all these without any reflection and shadows? Mind sharing?

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by JimmyH Wow good stuff. Very sharp details on the fishes. Did you use flash? Lighting is quite OK too. Great job

Thanks. I did use an external flash mounted on the camera.

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by hirowen Wow! I love fish macro. Especially frontosa my favourite fish! Wonder how you capture all these without any reflection and shadows? Mind sharing?

Thanks.

To avoid reflections, try not to point the flash directly at the glass. In other words, point the flash at an angle to the glass so that the light from the flash is not reflected back directly to the camera.

To further minimise reflections, make sure that the tank is well lit and that the light in the room is kept to the minimum.

Shadows are harder to avoid as you can see they are still present in my photos. The presence of shadows is dependent on the position of the fish relative to the rear wall of the tank and the floor of the tank. The further it is from the rear wall or the floor of the tank, the lesser the shadow that would be cast by the use of the flash.

[Dann]

Nice shots. Its helps if your fishes don't swim too fast.
Mine don't keep still at all real hard to take a normal pic even,
don't even wan to think of taking macro.
Will have to wait till its gets bigger then it will swim slower and I no need to take macro shots liao.
Coz its a Arowana

[kross]

Originally Posted by Dann Nice shots. Its helps if your fishes don't swim too fast. Mine don't keep still at all real hard to take a normal pic even, don't even wan to think of taking macro. Will have to wait till its gets bigger then it will swim slower and I no need to take macro shots liao. Coz its a Arowana

u can use a flash(or a few) to "freeze" its motion....they dun have to be absolutely still for macro shots....

[daden]

Originally Posted by kross u can use a flash(or a few) to "freeze" its motion....they dun have to be absolutely still for macro shots....

But how to focus them, bro... interested in this area also... mind sharing the tips?

[kross]

Originally Posted by daden But how to focus them, bro... interested in this area also... mind sharing the tips?

eh.... i no expert here but if u're interested in aquatic-photography, this might be your answer....
i've learnt alot from the site.... do a search or ask around...u'll get your answers...
bottom line in aquatic photography(besides having the right setup), like other photography, is that it requires a great amount of patience...and at times, luck too, to capture the best moment of the subjects....

as for how to focus the subject, it's more like how to keep them in focus before u take the shot...... if u're using slr or dslr with macro lens, it's easy. just fix a focus point(usually the centre) and use AF(with sufficient light or else your lens will be hunting).... a fast AF is good to have on fast moving subjects.... if u dun have one, practice and patience is all u've got....

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by daden But how to focus them, bro... interested in this area also... mind sharing the tips?

... and if you are using a DSLR, you can try using continuous AF to keep track of slower moving fishes (I seldom ever use that mode though). For really fast moving ones, you could try using manual focussing at a particular spot and shoot when a fish swims into that spot. A bit of luck required to get really good keepers though.

[hwchoy]

Hey Steve, talking about Servo AF, I finally found a use for it (as you might know I usually do manual "whole-body AF"). This fish, Cyclocheilichthys heteronema, is a very rare Thai cyprinid has a unique branched barbel which it uses to find food. It only flashes them out occassionally in mid water and so I had to use Servo AF to continously AF on the eyes while snapping the moment the barbels drops down!

[Ljung]

Originally Posted by daden But how to focus them, bro... interested in this area also... mind sharing the tips?

try mounting on tripod, prefocus manually on one particular spot and wait, then start continuous shots just before the fish about to swim in the area?
this needs patience and interest to understand the fish swimming behaviour....

[hwchoy]

Originally Posted by Ljung try mounting on tripod, prefocus manually on one particular spot and wait, then start continuous shots just before the fish about to swim in the area? this needs patience and interest to understand the fish swimming behaviour....

have you actually tried this?

[Ljung]

Originally Posted by hwchoy have you actually tried this?

of course cant do 1:1 macro shot on one small size fish in a big tank lah.... unless u can communicate with the fish

[hwchoy]

Originally Posted by Ljung of course cant do 1:1 macro shot on one small size fish in a big tank lah.... unless u can communicate with the fish

why cannot 1:1 macro?

actually my point being, if the fish is small you can't use a tripod. if the fish is big, you don't really need a tripod. the key is amount of available light.

sorry steve for OT

[hwchoy]

Originally Posted by daden But how to focus them, bro... interested in this area also... mind sharing the tips?

another similar thread http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=189774

[daden]

Thanks for the tips... just checked again this thread... thanks guys!
Now I'm maintaining (and set up too) 3 fishtanks in my school student lounge... used to be 4 tanks, but the arowana didn't last that long... really a challenge to raise arowana from very young...
upz this thread!