Aqurium photo technique questions

gbraatz

I work at a zoo and love to take photos of my animals but when I try to take pictures of the fish it never looks good. I have some cheep flash that is worthless I also have 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6IS lens & a 55-250 1:4-5.6IS, oh & my canon 50D. What filters do you recommend? I know my stuffs not that good but I would like to make them look good.

Tee Why

If the issue is with blurred subjects due to slow light, turn up the ISO to increase the shutter speed.

If you are having issues with a glare, turn off the flash and get really close to the glass. I'd recommend getting one of those round generic rubber lens hood you screw on onto the filter thread of the lens and place the hood against the glass to remove flare.

Consider posting some samples you are getting with exif so we can see what is going on.

pathfinder

Shooting in aquariums is very demanding of lens aperture. I rec at least an f2 lens, if you wish to shoot at ISO 800 or less.

These were shot in the Aquarium in Chattanooga in 2003 with a 10D - Check the exif data to see what lens aperture and ISO were used. The 10D has been replaced by better cameras these days, but the Exposure Values will not have changed.

Here are some from 2005 of the Chattanooga Aquarium as well. Mostly ISO 1600 at around f2.5 1/100th

I agree with using a rubber lens hood to seal your lens against the glass to reduce reflections. I also suggest a microfibre cloth to clean the finger prints and nose prints off the glass of the aquariums walls.

I have not found flash useful myself. I am not sure it is permitted in many aquaria.

Richard

pathfinder wrote:

I have not found flash useful myself. I am not sure it is permitted in many aquaria.

I've never been to one that permitted flash, but I would think it might be tricky to avoid reflections or light spill unless you could get it off camera. OTOH, if you can figure it out, it would solve the low light problem that makes aquarium shooting so difficult.

Try using manual focus. The lenses you mentioned probably will have trouble getting focus lock in the dim light. Crank the ISO up as high as you need to keep your shutter speed above 1/100. A well exposed pic at high ISO will have less noise than an underexposed pic at lower ISO once you adjust it.

Here are some pics I shot a few weeks ago. They're not fantastic or anything, but they are better than most of my previous attempts, which were awful.