Macro'ing fish

[rtamburo]

Has anybody been fairly successful and taking macro shots of fish or other little critters that won't stay still. I took about 30 shots of my fish and only 2 came out fairly decent. I know the lighting is poor... It was late at night with poor room lighting and now flash. I'm more concerned about focus and DOF. I tried to lock onto their eyes because it was easiest to see the eyes in focus then their scales. Here's what I got, any criticism or insight into better pictures for these moving buggers is greatly appreciated:

http://www.gookalian.com/temp/bozo.jpg
http://www.gookalian.com/temp/candygirl.jpg

[jglisson73]

For one, the pics you posted are pretty noisy. You might check your ISO and set it at 50. 100 tops.

You are probably going to have to manual focus to get the shots you want. It will be hard in macro mode to get any DOF.

I imagine you will want to use a tripod and try to keep the shutter speed at or above 1/60 so the movement of the subject and/or camera doesn't blur the shot.

Those are my only suggestions at this point.

John

[house]

I found that the only way I could get good fish pictures from my aquarium to turn out was to use a tripod, manual focus, and use about 300 ISO setting. It added noise, but unless there is an all-encompasing light source, they will turn out dim. Flash did nothing positive for me. Raising the ISO also allowed me to keep a fairly fast shutter speed to keep focus sharp. I will try to attach my attempts if I can figure out how...

[house]

Well I posted one of mine in the next message but the pic is pretty big (I have to figure out how to change that when I embed images) You can see how noisy it is, but it was the best I could do at the time..

[rtamburo]

Here were my settings:
Exposure Time: 1/40
FNumber: 3.2
ISO: 50
I was also in manual mode. It was just really hard to predict the fish's motion. A tripod might be useful to eliminate some blur, but wouldn't that make it more difficult keeping the fish in focus? I would manually adjust the focus, the fish would move of course, and I'd have to move with the fish forward, backward, left and right to get it back into my focus.

I'll try again when they're resting :)

[house]

Ok now that I have an actual webpage for my pictures - I posted one of the pics I got of my aquarium

http://www.pbase.com/housanium

[blackrook]

I've had some excellent fish shots with my G3.

My method:

Close the curtains.
Set camera on Ap at F8.
USE FLASH. (note I try not to do an extended session cos some fishes don't like the flash).

Zoom in and set manual focus to the shortest distance.

Set burst photography.

Hold camera at a 45 degree angle to the glass.
(avoids getting flash reflection)

Move camera to about the right focus distance/ wait till fish is about in the right position then take a burst of three.

Cross fingers that you get a good shot.
Admittedly I chuck out 9 out of 10 pics.
But the 10th picture is normally pretty good.


My lastest fish pic:
http://davidsnape.fotopic.net/photo.php?id=1168200

[tonymac]

Back when I had several aquariums, I tried taking pictures with mixed results. A couple of tips:

1. Use a flash, preferably off-camera. Set the camera at a 45 degree angle and the flash parallel to the tank. Alternatively, you could fire the flash into the water from the top of the tank.

2. Build a photography tank. I've never actually done this, but I remember reading about it. What you do is build a very small tank about 2-3 inches wide, 12 inches long and 10-12 inches deep. Use tempered glass and silicone for the joints. You can paint the outside of the back to make a uniform background and add gravel for a natural bottom. When shooting, just fill the tank with water from your main aquarium, transfer the fish, and take the photos. It should be a low stress event for the fish (since there's no variation in water quality. The narrow tank will allow you to get the whole tank in focus if you use a fairly high f/stop.

[rtamburo]

Cool thanks for the suggestions. I forgot to add that I was also using the +7 Hoya Macro set. I just tried my hand at sharpening up one of the pictures, was kind of fun.

http://www.gookalian.com/temp/bozosharp.jpg

[Dionaea]

Here's a link to an forum about Reef Aquariums. This is a section about photographing your aquariums. They have numerous examples and give very helpful advice about aquarium photography specifically.

Try This Link. (http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=2333ddb969909e568ee46631976131d 0&forumid=118)

HTH.
-James

[Dionaea]

Also, this guy is quite good.

Here's the link. (http://www.gregrothschild.com)

And one of his photos.
http://www.gregrothschild.com/jeff9-14-03/12.jpg

-James