Happy Eel. Shedd Aquarium, Chicago Canon EOS 30D + 24-70 f/2.8 L | 1/60 | f/2.8 | 70mm | ISO 800
In an effort to bring you guys more posts, this is the first of our new “Quick Tips” category, where we will briefly go through some tried and true methods for different types of photography and share some good old photo porn. Get the tips and photos after the jump…
Aquarium photography can pose some some unique challenges you won’t find pretty much anywhere else. The combination of the low-light without a tripod, thick & dirty glass, hyperactive kids, and floating debris can make getting a good shot a challenge. Here are a few tips to make sure you get the shot.
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Start with a fast lens
The low available light and restricted flash usage means you need a fast lens. Stick with f/2.8 or faster. If your lens has some sort of Image Stabilization and f/2.8 you are in even better shape. The other huge benefit to a lens with a wide aperture is that the shallow depth of field can make the dirty glass you are shooting through almost invisible. More on this later.
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Bump your ISO
Another fix for the low-light situation, bump your ISO up as high as you need to to get somewhere between 1/30th and 1/60th shutter speed. The places I’ve shot have usually required ISO 800 or higher, but experiment for best results. Worried about the noise of high ISO? Not sure what to tell you here. The noise all the way up to ISO 1600 is manageable on my 30D. Personally, I’d much rather have a grainy shot than a blurry one and use the nose reduction tools in Lightroom after the shoot.
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Stabilize your camera
Most aquariums prohibit tripod usage so its time to practice shooting hand-held at slower shutter speeds. The easiest way to add some stability is to press your lens right up against the aquarium glass (use a UV filter to protect from inadvertent bumps and scratches). This serves 2 purposes, the closer you are to the dirty glass with your lens, the more out of focus it will be, effectively making it invisible in the final shot. If you can’t get the right shot pressed up against the glass, use a friend’s shoulder, or if you have no friends, shoot short bursts of images and pray for a sharp one.
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Be PATIENT
I really can’t stress this one enough. Aquariums are like crack for little kids, so there is a good chance that on more than a few occasions they will be getting in the way of your shot, bumping into you and scaring the wildlife. Be patient, do some zen meditation, say goosfraba, whatever. Just wait for the kids to move along and the fishies to settle down. You’ll be rewarded with a solid shot.
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Don’t just shoot the animals
Along with cool fish and reptile, aquariums also have tons of awesome coral, anemones, and plants that can make for a good shot. Don’t get too focused on the fishies to see the other great shots in their surroundings.
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Do the right thing in post-processing
Retouching your aquarium shots when you get back to the laptop can feel a bit daunting, but if you know the basics you’ll get the results you are looking for. Retouching these shots could be a post on its own, but here are the basics. Tweak the white-balance to combat the fluorescent aquarium lights to bring the colors to life. Work with the contrast, especially in the midtones… in Lightroom I start by adjusting fill light, blacks and clarity. Break out the healing brush… floating debris can be a distraction so do your best to get rid of them. Lastly, don;t over-sharpen… shooting at high ISO brings noise and grain, over-sharpening can enhance the noise, so don’t go to crazy with it.
I hope these tips have been helpful. If you have anything to add, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. If you’ve shot recently at an aquarium, link it up, I’d love to see your results.
Photo Porn from the Shedd Aquarium, Chicago
A polarizer might also be good to eliminate any ambient reflections on the glass itself. Also, for the love of creatures great and small, change the name of your site. I love it, but I have a heck of time explaining the name to everybody who sees me reading it. You can come up with a better name than “camera porn”, I know it. If you would like some suggestions, I can help.
“Don’t just shoot the animals” - I shot people before a large greeny aquarium, which turned out excellent!
http://www.ergens.com/fotoblog/index.php?showimage=382
Here are a few from me:
- Turn off pumps and filters while shooting. Reducing water motion will help improve the clarity of your images
- Filter the water with some activated carbon. This will help remove dissolved organic compounds that can make the water appear yellowish.
- The less water you have to shoot through, the better. Subjects in the front of the tank will be clearer than those shot through several inches of water.
- Trigger the shutter with either a remote release or the self-timer. This will help reduce camera shake and result in sharper images. Obviously only useful if using a tripod.
- Turn off the camera’s on-board flash. Direct flash will make the image appear flat or two dimensional.
- If your camera supports remote flash, experiment with lighting the subject from above (either directly, or bounce the flash off the aquariums light reflector). Nikon’s Creative Lighting System is particularly nice for this — Nikon plug
- Shooting at a high ISO will give you more flexibility with shutter speed and aperture, but will add noise — a real problem for tightly-cropped macro shots.
Awesome shots. Shooting through glass with a flash is always tricky, I always stick my camera right up against it, I actually got some really decent shark pictures at Mandalay Bay’s aquarium in Las Vegas with a 35mm disposable that way (forgot my camera!).
I’ve seen people use rubber lens covers to do this better, not sure how good that works. Any thoughts on that method?
What kind of macro lense do you suggest?
@dana
A macro lens may not serve you the best in aquarium conditions unless you are really going for really close shots, which are really tough in aquarium conditions (no tripod, no flash). The shots you see here were shot mostly with f/2.8 zoom lenses (Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L and Nikon 28-70mm AF-S Nikkor f/2.8). In general though, I really like the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro and for Nikon the f/2.8 105mm Nikkor Macro (now available with VR).
Though, if you are shooting in controlled conditions (a fish tank in your home) you could get amazing results with a sharp, fast macro lens.
Using a soft rubber lens hood will allow you to smash your lens up against the glass and minimize reflections.
Wow, great tips! I have always been pretty bad at photography, and even worse are aquarium photography, now I see why… I’ve been doing it all wrong! I’m going to go have another shot at it now that I’ve read your article, and think it should go much better than before.
Hey, these are great tips if you want to photo a particular subject. But, got any tips on how to get good pic of the whole tank (5 foot/ 125 gal). I can’t seem to get rid of the reflection no matter what I try.