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| | | | | | Whether you're shooting your own aquarium or a friend's, you'll find tailing fishes with your camera a challenging experience. You need an SLR, a flash, and a wide-angle lens ' the wider the better. And if your lens doesn't focus close enough to get the fish sharp when the lens is pressed against the side of the glass tank, you'll also need a +1 or slightly weaker closeup lens or narrow extension tube.
If you only have an SLR with built-in flash, try using the flash. You must press the lens against the glass tank to prevent the flash from reflecting into the lens.
But this won't get you the best fish pictures. If you follow the drawing below you'll have an ideal setup. Don't worry that your flash only covers to 35mm or 28mm. When lighting from above as shown, the water spreads the light amazingly. We've even used a 14mm lens and obtained well-lit results. An ISO 400 film, slide or print, will do nicely. Use aperture-priority autoexposure (if you have it) with TTL flash, and choose a fairly small lens opening — f/16 or so. Make some test exposures (if you have a flash-OK signal in your viewfinder you can quickly find out whether you have enough light). If you have an autofocus single-lens reflex, you'll be delighted how well it will usually work on the fish provided they're not moving too swiftly.
You needn't turn off the aquarium lights. Your daylight-balanced flash will usually overpower the aquarium illumination. Besides, when you turn off aquarium lights, tropical fish often think it's time to go to sleep and slip into nooks and crannies where you can't see them.
The most important element in photographing fish in a home aquarium is patience. The fish must become accustomed to that lens stuck against the glass and your big face behind it. Don't make any sudden or fast moves. Goldfish are one of the spookiest fish and require the most time to settle down.
Aquariums with tastefully arranged rocks and plants (real or otherwise) have the best picture potential — if you can get the fish to swim in front of the objects. If you see beyond the fish tank into the room, through the finder, you might fasten some colorful paper, green or blue seem preferable, to the opposite tank side to blank out the far view and add a touch of color to your pictures.
While you can go it alone shooting the pictures and holding the flash, having a helper hold the flash directly over the lens is much more convenient. And for Pete's sake, don't dip your flash unit into the fish tank!
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