Willy Wombat Posted June 8, 2005 Share Posted June 8, 2005 Preface: This article is reprinted with the permission of the author. It was first posted on the Aquatic Photography Forum (http://aquatic-photography.com) Direct link to article APF is a dedicated website for the photography of aquatic animals (especially fish) and a useful resource to those wanting to develop aquatic photography skills. I thought this article would be of benefit to ACE members as it outlines technique (with pictures) for producing high quality fish pictures. I hope you find it of use. Cheers WW A Photography Session - Beginning to End By Rich "squidfish" I thought it might be interesting to make a pictorial record of a typical fish photography session. I am not saying my methods are the ways you need to adopt to photograph but it is how I do things at present with the equipment I have, as I continue to crawl up the learning curve. Before I dive into the session I will first give you a quick introduction to the tank, after all that is the stage for the pictures. The Tank The tank is a 400 litre Juwel tank (24” (60cms) high and 20” (50cms) deep with black plastic tank background. Tank lighting is quite low at a total of 72 Watts with a Tri Plus tube at the front and an Actinic tube behind. Substrate is a mix of play and coral sand. This pale substrate seems to have an advantage in reflecting some light up below the fish and balancing out the exposure of the pictures (disclaimer: Do not think your discus will look better with some substrate illumination by the addition of some coral sand) . The fish love it and charge round like bulldozers and the coral sand keeps the pH and calcium hardness up. Plants would not last a minute and so decoration is rocks, artificial rock and a reptile cave!! Thirty-five inhabitants, crowded to reduce aggression, mainly Malawi mbuna and a trio of Haps covering a total of 13 species. It’s a busy and lively tank to be photographing. The other factor I have to consider is that territorial mbuna possess a ‘permanently having a bad day’ temperament , so bumps, scrapes and nipped fins can reduce the number of available fish I have as subjects. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession1.jpg Timing the Session I’m going for an evening session, for a number of reasons. The fish have been fed and go quieter about 90 minutes before lights out, usually mooching around grazing algae off rocks. Also its easier to darken the room to prevent any reflections in the glass and beats early evening TV any day. The fish tend to become more active after the weekly water change which and often induces spawning and copious digging. The first couple days after the water change can provide some interesting pictures although made more difficult by the increased activeness of the fish. Cleaning Windows What is the point of investing in a good lens if your going to take photos through dirty glass? So the tank glass will get a clean a couple of hours before the session. Both inside.... http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession2.jpg and out…….. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession3.jpg (Note the distance of window cleaner from fish tank, they don’t mix, so a sprayed tissue is taken to the tank.) If you look at your front glass from the end of the tank, you will be surprised how quickly a dulling bacterial film will build up. Batteries Fully charged . You can guarantee batteries will run out at critical moments, usually just as your rarest fish begin to spawn. The Set-Up The camera I am going to use on the session is a Canon 20D with Kit Lens. This will be hand-held. As the tank is quite dimly lit I will need some additional light. Using the on-board flash can only give me limited results as fish are naturally mainly lit from above and not from the side. Harsh shadows, glistening metallic scales, and over exposed areas are often a feature of using built-in flash. Here is an example photograph taken with built-in flash http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession4.jpg So I have to direct the flash from where I want it, which is mainly from above. I use an old (you have to light a candle to get it started!!) Pentax AF240Z flash on the camera top, this is angled up towards the top of the tank and its function is to trigger a slave flash to give me a downward light. The slave flash is a Vivtar DF200 which is cheap and functional. I have also found the photographs benefit from a little side illumination and so use a Sunpak Remote Lite II on its arm mount, screwed to the base of the camera. Incidentally the rubber on the flash mount smells like the sole off a hippopotamus’s foot and is stuck close to the nose for long periods. Here is the kit for the session http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession5.jpg Setting the Slave Flash The slave flash is placed at the top of the tank, at the front, angled slightly towards the back. I have found if you place the flash to far back then you start getting reflection of yourself with camera in the pictures. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession6.jpg As I will be taking the shots directly below the slave flash, the fish will need to be towards the front half of the tank to catch the light. Having the fish nearer the front of the tank aids focusing and requires less zoom. This in turn will aid the depth of field in the shot, meaning that I am more likely to have the entire fish in focus rather than just a part of it. The placement of the flash along the length of the tank depends on the type of background I am looking to achieve in the shot. Often I will move the slave flash around during a session to get a range of background effects or if there is some interesting activity in another part of the tank.. There are two background checks which are: to avoid any filtration and heating equipment appearing at the back of the photograph and looking for a good contrast between the background (in this case rocks) and the colour of the fish to improve definition in the photograph. Shooting Zone I will be concentrating taking the shots in what I call the ‘Shooting zone’ (marked as the green area on the following photograph) which is my selected target area in which to take the photographs. I have tried to explain this with the following photograph. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession7.jpg The overhead slave flash creates a limited downward area of light in which I can take the picture and get correct exposure (marked by overall shape in the example). Fish that are only half way into this area will only partially correctly exposed (these photographs may still be useful for trimming to a head shot of the fish). This guppy photo gives a good example of the change in exposure on the edge of the downward flash. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession8.jpg The distance of the fish from the surface of the tank is also important. I am going to concentrate taking the photographs towards the bottom of the tank (green area) and set the camera accordingly. If I take a photo in the upper red marked area with the camera settings for my shooting zone, I will end up with the top of the fish over exposed in the photographs due to its closeness to the flash. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...otosession9.jpg To take pictures closer to the surface I would need to reduce the flash power and alter the camera settings to achieve correct exposure. Looking back to my diagram photo, for my photo session I will treat the red area as ‘forget it’, orange area as ‘might be worth a try’ and green area as ‘all systems go’ , bit like a traffic light really. You will notice that there is a red ‘forget it’ area below the green shooting zone. I want the fish a few inches from the bottom of the tank, as inclusion of too much of the pale substrate in the photograph can cause exposure havoc in the shots (this is partial because I have still got to mix the coral sand in more with the play sand of this new tank, so the bottom of the tank is looking a little too white at present). However, I still want to benefit from light reflecting from the bottom to give some illumination to the underside of the fish. Finally I will also ‘forget it’ zone for any fish further than half way back in the tank, as remember the flash is placed at the front so this is where my additional light is concentrated. Flash and Click The overhead slave flash has an adjustable power output and for this session I am going to set it to full power. By having plenty of light in the shooting zone allows me to use the following camera settings: 1) Have a lower ISO setting increasing the detail of the shot. ISO will be set at 100. 2) Increase the shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed the better chance of getting the fish in focus in the photograph. Faster shutter speeds are of benefit with very active species such as mbuna. I will be using a shutter speed between 1/250 – 1/400. 3) Smaller aperture setting. By using a larger F stop number, the aperture on the lens in reduced and the depth of field of the shot is increased. The greater the depth of field the more likely all the fish is likely to be in full focus. I will be using an aperture between F11 and F16. A few test shots of the ‘Shooting Zone’ help me refine the manual settings on the camera. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession10.jpg I will be shooting some shots as JPEGs and some photographs in RAW format and will be using the autofocus on the lens. Getting in position Before the session begins a large tea is in order, although I usually end up with half a cold mug (memory note: Rich buy yourself an insulated mug) The room has been darkened A chair is placed in front of the tank opposite the Shooting Zone, cup of tea to the side. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession11.jpg Two features to note are that when taking the shots the camera is level with the fish or more usually pointing slightly down to it. If I take a picture pointing upwards to a fish that is higher in the tank it is likely I will get the SunPak flash, that provides some side illumination, appearing in the shot. A good example of this is shown in the following photograph. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession12.jpg Also I have not got the camera placed right up to the tank glass but I am holding it about 30 – 40 cms (12 -16 inches) from the tank as I need to take the minimum focusing distance of the Canon kit lens into account. Cameras roll and action!!!! Its 26th March 2005, early evening, and the session is going to run for a couple of hours. Generally the session will last about1 to 2 hours depending how cooperative the fish are being. As I have set the camera up for the ‘Shooting Zone’, I am waiting for the fish to come to into this area where I can expect good exposure on the shots, rather than chase them round the tank with the camera. However, I will not be photographing every fish that enters the ‘Shooting Zone’ as I need the fish to be in a good pose (such as fins spread), correctly orientated (square to the camera or facing towards the camera) or showing some interesting behaviour (displaying, digging in the sand, grazing algae, etc). Once a fish enters the shooting zone, I quickly autofocus in on it and then keep, then zoom to size, followed by continued refocusing until it achieves a good pose. As a minimum, I will be looking to get at least the head area of the fish in good focus on the photograph. I take about 100 photographs during the Session. I have deleted some obvious non-starters as I have gone along but. The session was not the best as the fish were in an uncooperative mood but I am sure there will be a couple of useable shots. The good, the bad and the terrible The first check and delete of the photographs, I do on the camera LCD screen which saves downloading time. Its now time to sort the potential ‘keepers’, from the ‘waste-bin fodder’. There are some obvious non-starters which include: Over exposed with flash burn out along the back http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession13.jpg Out of focus http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession14.jpg Fish swimming away from camera http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession15.jpg Other fish obscuring shot which is one of the hazards of a busy tank http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession16.jpg Under exposed as the fish is too far back in tank and outside the influence of the slave flash. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession17.jpg Shadow across the head from fish swimming overhead http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession18.jpg While going through the shots I always look for the potential to crop (trimming the image to size) in the Photo Editor and will zoom in and out to look at detail. Can I get a good head crop from this following shot as the tail is under exposed? http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession19.jpg Having downloaded the photographs which show some potential, its time to double click the photo editor software. Artistic licence For the JPEG files downloaded off the camera, I going to edit the shots in Paintshop Pro. I try and keep processing of the photograph to a minimum, to keep that as ‘nature intended’ look as they say. I will not be going through the processing of the RAW shots from the camera but find myself increasingly turning to this more flexible format and taking the RAW photos into Capture One LE. I will take you through the processing of one of the ‘keeper’ shots from the session. I will confess I am no expert in photograph editing so I will keep it simple. (I have rezised the picture to begin which is a process I normally undertake at the end but makes formatting the pictures in this article easier). Also I am quite happy with the exposure, which accurately reflects the actual colour of the fish, so I am not going to make any brightness level adjustments. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession20.jpg The picture is of a female Tropheops ‘Red Cheek’ who by the look of her will be spawning soon.. As you can see there is quite an amount of debris in the shot (a small flash reflection, other fish, unwanted shadow on the rock etc). First step is to select the area of the picture that I want to use by cropping or trimming the picture which removes some of the unwanted debris. Notice that I have not cropped the picture too tightly to the fish. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession21.jpg I now want to remove unwanted features in the picture by using the Clone tool. So I am going to remove ths shadow of the other fish from the rock and clean up the black area. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession22.jpg Finally I am going to remove the ‘flash teardrop’ from the bottom of the eye (something that can be an artifact of using overhead flash) with the clone tool and increase the sharpness by a small amount. Some sharpness will be lost by the original reduction of the photo size. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession23.jpg Of course then its time to upload the photograph to the Aquatic Photography Forum to share with all Output From the session, I ended up with few photographs that I was happy with. So here are a couple of them. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession24.jpg Young female Labeotropheus fuelleborni ‘Katale’. This fish is actually a cream to white colour on top with a grey head….at the moment!! and yawning with her under-slung algae nibbling mouth. She is probably bored at looking at the camera!!! http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession25.jpg Labidochromis hongi ‘Lupingu’ with a toothy grin for the camera http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession26.jpg Cynotilapia afra ‘Jalo Reef’. This is not the greatest picture but the exposure is about right. This young male was brown 2 weeks ago so I am putting this picture here to show his newly acquired colour. A good potential photo subject for the future I think. http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession27.jpg So for now its goodbye from me and some waving fins from them http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/fil...tosession28.jpg Good to have you along on the session, hope you enjoyed it. Cheers Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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