A few of my favorites...

[hyperfocal]

Here are a few of my favorite shots. They vary in quality, but I like them all and hope you do too.

[KellyPug]

ooO i like your shots~ is the urchin about to eat the hermit crab in the first picture? >.< i love the feather duster shot - i find myself trying to look into the tube :P

and also the always, what camera, lens did you use? ^^

[kactusficus]

wow I love the sharpness of the sponge and the tube, and I love the softness of the texture and colours from the euphillia, xenia and the ric, and I love the fun scene with the urchin (gorgeous colours on the urchin, by the way)!!

would love to see more!

[hyperfocal]

Thanks! The shots were taken with my Nikon D70, using either the Nikon 24-85mm F/3.5-4.5 G or the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G ED IF AF-S VR lens. Most were shot with ambient tank light (10K MH), except for the feather duster and the green ricordia which were lit from above by a Nikon SB-600 speedlight wearing a Gary Fong LightSphere.

EDIT: Oh, Kellypug -- no, the urchin was only hauling the hermit around as camouflage. Or, as a festive hat. Definitely one of the two, though. Either way, not to eat... it'd only eat my coralline algae.

[kactusficus]

and by the way, your avatar is hilarious! can we see it larger??

[hyperfocal]

Heh, I wish I could take credit for it. I ripped it off from someone on another forum, who probably did the same thing :-) I just googled "cat couch potato" and found it at http://www.squoogy.com/images/CouchPotato.jpg

[edwing206]

Love the xenia and yuma pic. Very nice.

[Absolute Reef]

I love the 1st pic!

[reefman13]

What kind of urchin is that? Nicest one I have seen.

[hyperfocal]

Pincushion sea urchin (Lytechinus vaniegatus)

He was cool, broke my heart to get rid of him -- but he ate coralline at an incredible rate and abducted frags, snails, hermits etc. It was funny at first, but eventually got to be a real pain in the assets.

[shaggydoo541]

Absolutely amazing. I am going to practice every chance I get so I can take pictures like that. I too have the 105 mm lens, but I can't seem to get the same clarity you get and my coloration is almost always off. I get pretty good pictures when things are close to the front of my tank and I can shoot head on, but if they are further back and if I have to go at an angle its all downhill from there. Any tips? Or should I just keep practicing. I have a speedlight I can use remotely but have not tried it at all, is it useful? All this equipment is my wife's so I'm mostly clueless.

[drummereef]

They vary in quality from great to awesome that is. The first pic is outstanding, not only in composition but how candid it is.

[hyperfocal]

Originally posted by shaggydoo541
Any tips? Or should I just keep practicing.

Yes, you should keep shooting. Tips are great, but nothing teaches like experience :-)

That said, there are a few techniques that I've found useful:

- Shoot with a tripod. The extra stability a tripod gives will improve the sharpness of your shots, allowing you to shoot at slower shutter speeds and lower ISO settings

- Use a remote release or on-camera self-timer. Pressing the shutter release button will shake the camera, reducing sharpness

- Shoot at as low an ISO as possible. The lower the ISO the lower the image noise. Since many aquarium shots are really cropped tight, noise is really obvious

- Experiment with Depth of Field. Shoot the same subject at different apertures and note the effects.

- Use a DSLR. They are more expensive, but are worth it if only for the larger sensor size. Expandability and flexibility are icing on the cake.

- Shoot perpendicular to the aquarium glass (particularly if the tank is acrylic). Shooting at oblique angles adds distortion and increases the risk or capturing reflections

- Never use on-camera flash. At worst, you'll get reflections and blow out part of the image. At best, you'll get horribly flat lighting.

- Clean the tank glass

- Run carbon

- Reduce flow in tank when shooting

- Move the subject as close to the front of the tank as possible. The less water you have to shoot through the sharper the image.

- I like to spot meter and shoot in manual mode. YMMV.

- Nikon's Creative Lighting System is fantastic. He's how I illuminate many of my shots:



It's wireless, automatic and almost foolproof... once you figure out the terrible UI on the speedlight.

- Shooting in the camera's "raw" mode often gives more flexibility in post-processing/Photoshop

- It takes a lot of shooting to get those "WOW!" shots. An award-winning pro photographer (travel/portrait/wedding) friend of mine says she gets ~50% usable shots; I've seen her workflow and she's really closer to 20% ;-) I'm at <10%

- Visualize the image before snapping the shutter. Don't just shotgun the tank, shooting away hoping to get something nice. An interesting but flawed image is better than a technically perfect boring image. Tell a story.

- Read a bit about composition (google "golden rectangle") and keep those principles in mind when cropping. Don't just plop the subject dead center in the frame each time.

Hmmmm, longer list than I anticipated. Anyways, YMMV. I know there are many people out there who get great images with techniques 180 degrees off what I list above. Except for those folks who use the on-camera flash. Pity them ;-)

[shaggydoo541]

Thank you. I find a lot of that very helpful and will have to keep practicing and try to work in a lot of those tips.