What are your aquarium photography hacks?

[JPenguin12]

Getting good pictures of an aquarium can be difficult for many reasons and not everyone has the budget or the know-how. Many are limited to using their cellphones. What problems have you faced and what tick(s) have you discovered to overcome those difficulties?

[MickS77]

I just use the Pro mode on my Note 9. I adjust the settings until it looks good to me, turn the saturation up. I use a cheap tripod off Amazon for filming.  

This sheet helped me understand the settings better

Edited October 8, 2020 by MickS77

[Daniel]

Number thing one is Light. Number two is lighting. Number three is almost any camera will work (especially if you are like @MickS77 and take a moment to learn about your camera) as long as you have good lighting.

Here a two cellphone photos that used bright lighting to shorten the exposure time and this helped make the photo sharper.

And cellphones have macro lenses available now so you can also get good close ups.

 

[yannachka]

some of my tips:

-good lighting is important. i always up the brightness on my tank lights before taking photos, your camera will never have the same dynamic range that your eyes have so the tanks/fish will always come out darker in the photos than how it appears to your eye (this is very basic, if you’d like me to go into depth on it i can). 

-a flash will help freeze action and will help isolate fish in motion, great for fish that are active and hard to photograph.

-keep your camera as parallel to the glass as you can to help reduce distortion through the glass and glare. 

-turn off all of the lights in the room/block windows so there are no reflections on the glass. you can also use a polarizing filter on your lens to help remove some glare and reflections as well.

-throw in food to attract the fish to the front of the tank. i like to spot feed in one part of the tank and that is where i actively take the photos instead of chasing the fish around the tank with my camera

-you dont need a high end camera with a macro lens, your phone should work just fine for most shots. a macro lens is very very helpful for getting really nice close up shots though. 

 

i wanted to expand on using a flash a little bit.

here is an example of a non flash photo and a photo taken with flash in the same tank. different fish but same lighting/tank. you can see how the flash freezes the fish and really brings out the colors in the background that are very difficult to bring back in post.

the image is also a lot cleaner since there is little to no noise from needing to bump up the iso to compensate for the lighting. i find myself being in the 2000-3500 iso range a lot of times when shooting photos in uncontrollable environments (like in the store tanks or where i cannot control the lighting). this high iso leads to lots of noise in the photos. by using a flash you can drop that down very low and you get a cleaner image overall.

no flash 

flash

Edited October 8, 2020 by yannachka

[MattyIce]

I think the biggest hack is to get slow fish, after that id say high aperture, shutter speed where your not getting blur, turn the ISO up to where it is bright enough, and use noise removal in Lightroom later.

If your are trying to take a photo of a fish darting all over the place, shallow depth of field is going to give you that nice Bokeh, but every time the fish gets a mm closer or further away you have to refocus.  following it, continually refocusing on the correct object in a busy aquarium, and taking the photo at the exact moment everything is perfect, it takes a lot of practice and patience.  No hack for that.

Up the aperture to 8 and maybe the same fish can now swim an inch closer to you or further away from you with out a noticeable drop in sharpness making the whole thing sooo much easier to get a nice photo.

Also to note, due to crop factor and the relation between aperture/depth of field/and distance from subject, most phones are starting off comparable to an F8 aperture, which tends to make it a bit easier for the average person to take decent fish photos with a camera phone than with a top of the line DSLR and lens.
 

Edited October 8, 2020 by MattyIce

[Cory]

My two main tips. Isolate the aquarium, all other aquarium lights/room lights are off. 

Second, it's all in the camera. With 20k of equipment in the room. I can get amazing shots with a $800 camera. The Sony Zv1 or any of the rx100. It'll take me 5 minutes, and a good shot. Now take Jimmy, give him 2 hours, 6k in equipment and he'll get a mind blowing shot. 

The biggest difference is time. When we are on location we might have 1 hour to film, and 30 minutes for photos/b roll. So we need really good shots quick, but not the best shots ever.  I find that a camera that can shoot 10-20 shots a second does well, as 50% of the fish photo game is getting the fish in the right spot in the tank under the light, without another fish in front of it, facing the right direction. Then getting your camera to focus fast enough on it's eye. After that adjusting your bokeh and such to see more or less depending on taste. I like to see all the fish and tank in focus. Jimmy likes to see just the 1 fish with the background blown out. So he uses lower aperture and I like higher aperture. 

 

@JimmyGimbal can give some tips. 

 

I'll leave this video Jimmy did on fish photography. 

 

[JimmyGimbal]

Thanks Cory! I've learned tons since that video and although a lot of practices are still the same some techniques have changed. At one point I was fascinated with using a Flash. I have a 61MP of a Rainbowfish that kinda blows my mind using a high powered flash. I went from taking spotlight photos of individual fish with black or blown out backgrounds to doing more fish tank shots with fish in them. For every single one of these I still use the same lens, a 90mm Macro. Having a proper 1:1 ratio (or more) magnification for these tiny fish is key for a nice photo next to having good light. I've always preached about having enough light to keep your ISO as low as possible. When I film at the store, I borrow the lights from the aquariums next to the one I'm filming to give me more light on top of bringing my own little 12w light. Once you figure out the whole ISO, Shutterspeed, Aperture settings you'll understand light and everything will flow.  

Edited October 8, 2020 by JimmyGimbal

[JimmyGimbal]

I'll make a second post to best answer your question. You could get fairly good photos with a phone if you have enough light. Blast the fish tank with your best lights. Your phone will dial your iso down so you can get a better quality picture in the end. If it doesn't which in most cases it doesn't (iPhones tend to overexpose by 1 or 2 stops) you'll have to do it yourself by tapping the phone screen and dragging your finger down to adjust it. Follow my tips in the video Cory linked with the fingernails to get as close as you possibly can but not limiting your movement so you can follow the fish. Try some amazon macro clip ons, if you have prime, try them all LOL 

[Ken Burke]

Another reference:

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-techniques/how-to-take-great-photos-at-the-aquarium.html
 

still working on my skills,  but ....

[yannachka]

jimmy gave some good tips and that video is a good watch. you really need to be comfortable and understand your camera before delving into fish photography in my opinion. once you understand the settings and how your camera works with them (each camera body has different iso tolerances, shutter counts/speed, etc) you can then fine tune them to fit fish photography. a macro lens is very helpful, i use a 50mm 1:1 since i like a wider focal length but many use the 100mm 1:1 for the extra reach it provides. the 1:1 magnification is important when taking macro shots but i switch it off for the wider tank shots  

i still believe that very bright lighting and/or flash is critical. you can always tone down the brightness in post for a more moody or dramatic photo but it is difficult to raise the shadows and blacks without adding noise into the photo. flash helps “freeze” the action and really isolates the fish from the background so i tend to use it when taking “portraits” of fish as you can call them. ill leave a few examples and notate which was taken with flash or not.

no flash, blackwater and poor lighting

flash

flash

no flash

flash

flash

no flash

flash

no flash

flash

no flash

flash

iphone

iphone

 

i use a speed light on my camera but i can also remove it and use it remotely. pointing it so it skims the top of the water adds a very cool effect and highlights to the fish. having a good handle on post production is pretty important as well. 

[clovenpine]

My main challenge is glare/reflection! My "show" tank is outdoors on my screen porch (central coastal Florida, expect updates on how I (mis)manage temperature and light changes, etc.), and the only time I don't compete with ambient light is late night/early morning. First photo is 6am, only tank lights on, second photo is 5pm when I wanted to show off my new hornwort addition. Neither really does the tank justice imo, but I hate being limited in the hours I can take photos! Still, having the tank out here is worth the aggravation. 

[J Cor]

5 hours ago, clovenpine said:

My main challenge is glare/reflection! My "show" tank is outdoors on my screen porch (central coastal Florida, expect updates on how I (mis)manage temperature and light changes, etc.), and the only time I don't compete with ambient light is late night/early morning. First photo is 6am, only tank lights on, second photo is 5pm when I wanted to show off my new hornwort addition. Neither really does the tank justice imo, but I hate being limited in the hours I can take photos! Still, having the tank out here is worth the aggravation. 

One option - thick black blanket around tank (behind you), cover above you as well. Basically blacking it out, flick the light on and snap away.