Tutorial – Photographing fish in an aquarium

When I was getting into photography I had a look around the web for guides to taking photographs of fish as I have an aquarium and wanted to take some pictures. I found that there weren’t any really good guides to taking photos so I thought I’d write my own.

I got together three cameras, a Panasonic DMC-FX40, a Nikon D40 with the standard 18-55 kit lens and a Nikon D90 with a 105mm Macro lens and SB900 flash. These are meant to represent the three types of camera user, the beginner, intermediate and advanced. Choose which guide best fits what equipment you have and get clicking!

Overview

Albino neon tetra - Nikon D90, Nikkor 105mm, ISO 800, F10, 1/100s

Regardless of which you go for here are some general tips to get the best from your photos:

• Use an overhead light if you have one. Most tanks will have a strip light above, this is normally great for shooting. If you have one above your tank then try to take your photos as close to the top of the water as possible to get the best light. The water at the bottom of the tank will have lost a lot of the light passing through.
• Clean your tank! Nothing worse than a big dried water drip between you and your fish in the final photo. Any glass cleaning products are fine, just don’t get them in the water!
• Try and get your fish used to you being there with a camera. Some ways to do this are to get them really used to you feeding them so they come up and say hello when you’re around or to put your camera on a tripod and leave it there for a few days to get them used to having a big black camera in their faces.
• If you’re struggling to get them to come and play then take your photographs whilst they’re feeding. My fish don’t care what you do if you’ve just given them some flakes! Blood worms are also interesting to use as you can get photos of your fish eating them.

Pro DSLR – Nikon D90 with 105mm macro and SB-900 flash

Male Guppy - Nikon D90, 105mm Macro, SB-900, ISO 800, F10, 1/100s

You’re going to be getting some amazing photos really quickly if you have a similar set up to this. Don’t worry if you don’t have a dedicated macro lens, I’ve used a Nikkor 18-200mm and a Nikkor 35mm and both have given really good results. To get the best out of your photos you’re going to have to brave your ‘Manual’ mode. If you’ve not done this before then don’t panic! If you have then hopefully this will be a breeze for you.

• Switch over to your Manual Mode, normally ‘M’
• Change your shutter speed to somewhere around 80-250 zone (back dial on Nikon D90).
• Change your aperture (f-stop) to f.10 (front dial on Nikon D90). This keeps more of the fish in focus so you can see all the detail, even if they’re not parallel to you.
• Set your ISO to 800 (Pressing the ISO button on the left hand of the screen use the right thumb dial). An ISO of 800 should be fast enough to keep the fish sharp whilst letting in enough light to keep the image nicely exposed. If you find your image is a bit dark then try changing your ISO to 1600.
• Turn your flash on and leave it on automatic. If you’re using a dedicated flash head then tilt it down as much as possible. If you’re using your camera’s built in flash then you may want to consider taping a little bit of paper over it loosely (don’t let the paper touch the flash strip, it could set on fire!) to diffuse the flash and avoid a reflection on the glass.
• To really get your fish nice and sharp you’re best putting the autofocus into continuous mode, as if you were shooting on the Sports Mode. To do this press the ‘AF’ button to the right of the top screen and rotate the thumb dial until it changes to AF-C. This means the autofocus will continually focus instead of focusing and then stopping (which is fine for things that don’t move, like buildings, but not for fast little fish!).
• If you’re having problems focusing then change your zones to single point. This will make the camera focus on whatever is right in the middle of the frame and nothing else.
• Make sure you keep the eyes in focus. This is the most important part of getting a good quality image. If the eye isn’t in focus the whole image will look wrong.

Intermediate DSLR – Nikon D40 with 18-55 lens

Neon Tetra - Nikon D40, 18-55mm at55mm, ISO 1600, F10, 1/80s

Even low end DSLR’s can be used to get great photos of fish in an aquarium. You don’t need special lenses or expensive off camera flash units to get good results. You can get some great photos using the built in Sports Mode but to get the best photos you’re going to have to flick around to your Manual Mode (M).

• Set your ISO to either 800 or 1600.
• Set your shutter speed to somewhere between 80 and 250 (play around to see what’s best for your tank).
• Change your aperture (f-stop) to f.10. As explained above this helps keep the fish in focus more.
• Try taking a few shots and see how they come out. If they’re a bit dark then try using the built in flash, changing the ISO to a higher number, or moving the shutter speed to a lower value. Slowing the speed allows more light to come into the camera but also increases the likelihood of blur.
• 

  Platty - Nikon D40, 18-55mm at55mm, ISO 1600, F10, 1/80s

  If the images are blurry you can experiment with changing the autofousing options, such as using continuous focusing mode to follow the fish around or selecting the centre weighting mode to only focus on what’s right in the middle of the frame.

If you’re using a kit lens which you don’t think zooms in enough then don’t panic. This is really easily sorted out. Take your photos at the highest possible size and quality settings and then use either the on-camera crop tools or a computer based image editor like Photoshop or GIMP (which is free). Just crop the image down around the fish and you can instantly get a great looking image.

Beginner (point and shoot) – Panasonic DMC-FX40

Swordtails - Panasonic DMC-FX40, ISO 400, F4, 1/60s

This is a great little camera and the features on it are very similar to most compact point and shoot cameras available on the market. The biggest challenge with a camera like this is getting enough light so that you can shoot quickly. Speed is really important when photographing fish as they move really quickly. Light is also a problem as the water will suck out the light leaving pictures often very dark. If you want to try simple photos then first off try the Sports Mode on your camera. You can get pretty decent results just with this. Top tip: shoot using the highest quality and largest file size possible so that you can crop the images after to focus in on the fish.

To get the best from this sort of camera though you need to go into the menus and have a play around. First off, find your ISO, this is what used to be film speed in 35mm days but now is how sensitive the camera’s sensor is to light, artificially creating the same effect. (If you really want to know more about ISO in lots more detail then check out Wikipedia’s entry). When you find where your ISO settings are they will probably be on “AUTO”. Change it to the highest possible value, it might be 800, 1600 or if you’re really lucky 3200. If your camera has a “HI” ISO I’d recommend not using it as the pictures will probably be very grainy.

Orange Platty - Panasonic DMC-FX40, ISO 400, F4, 1/60s

Male Guppies - Panasonic DMC-FX40, ISO 400, F2.8, 1/125s

Next you want to try and find your shutter speed if you can. A fast shutter speed keeps the image sharp so when your fish move you capture a still fish and not big blur! The best thing to do here is to have a play around with the settings. ½ means a shutter speed of half a second, which is very long. Ideally you want to try around the 1/60 to 1/120 shutter speeds which are, surprisingly one sixtieth of a second to one one hundred and twentieth of a second, much faster.

So, now you want to get yourself ready. This isn’t a quick thing. Patience really is needed. You’re going to take loads of photos. Most won’t work, some will. If you aren’t getting results you like then try changing your shutter speed settings around to have a play.

Top tip: Take photos at 45 degrees, not 90 degrees (flat on to the glass). This ensures that if the built-in flash fires then you won’t get a reflection.

Don’t give up when you’re using a point and shoot. When I was using a DSLR I got a usable photo every two or three shots I took. When I was using the point and shoot I had to take about fifteen photos just to get one half decent one! The best thing is though you can just delete the ones you don’t like.