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Finally got my fish tank up and running and grabbed some shots of my fish.
Not an easy subject as they constantly MOVE!!! argh!

Any tips on shooting aquarium fish? C and C welcome Straight from the camera onto PC.

Does anyone know what fish this is????


My home


With my other clown loach.

I do a fair bit of fish tank stuff myself Trieu. How big is your tank?

Best results are when you can use a remote flash fired from above the tank. It minimises shadows. Shooting fish is very hard work.

This yellow fish is an African Cichlid from Lake Malawi. Always hard to guess the species, but I would say it is a
"Pseudotropheus estherae"

 PS Common name for that species is the Red Zebra Cichlid

Thanks Steve! a friend gave me this fish a long time ago.

Thanks for the tips, yeah it is hard, no tripod all hand held too.

Trieu,

It's not marine? Oh well, I guess you can still enjoy it.

Did you use a flash for that shot? I have found using a flash mounted on the camera actually works well - most of the time. You just have to shoot with the lens fairly close to the glass and shoot straight through the tank. This both eliminates reflection of the flash off the glass and distortion due to refraction as the light passes from water to glass to air.

Steve,

I have found that using a flash from above actually increases the shadows because the light is now perpendicular to the line of the lens. The fish will be well lit from above and the lower parts will be in shadow. Note, that it can still be a good effect.

ATJ wrote:Trieu,

It's not marine? Oh well, I guess you can still enjoy it.

Did you use a flash for that shot? I have found using a flash mounted on the camera actually works well - most of the time. You just have to shoot with the lens fairly close to the glass and shoot straight through the tank. This both eliminates reflection of the flash off the glass and distortion due to refraction as the light passes from water to glass to air.

Steve,

I have found that using a flash from above actually increases the shadows because the light is now perpendicular to the line of the lens. The fish will be well lit from above and the lower parts will be in shadow. Note, that it can still be a good effect.

Hi ATJ, no flash in these shots, just the light from the aquarium lighting, it has two bulbs so it pretty strong. What I should have done was push the light directly over the subject for better lighting.

Will be doing that next time

Trieu,

I assume you mean 2 fluorescent tubes. On my marine tanks, the lowest lit tank has 4 fluorescent tubes and it is difficult to get good fish shots in that tank using that lighting alone. It is difficult even in tanks lit by metal halide lighting. You should give the flash a go.