Post by fishme on May 20, 2009 8:54:15 GMT -6
I know we all love to see great photos of other people's fish, so I thought from time to time I would post pics from other sites that catch my attention, with full attribution to the photographer and the original website, of course. The following is from cichlidforums.com (link below) by a guy known as Aquamojo. Not only is he an accomplished aquarist, he is a great photograher. Included are a couple of sections of his text that went along with the photos, including his use of a lighting arrangement that is far beyond what most of us could muster. Still, it's always fun to learn things, and this guy is one of the best aquarium photographers I've seen. Let me know if you enjoy this sort of thing. If so, I'll add to this thread on occasion. Oh, yeah, and feel free to add some of your own if you see something you like.
www.cichlidforums.com/
Aquamojo's comments:
"Ya gotta love this beautiful fish. I never have a problem asking her to pose. Most of the shots were taken from several feet away with a 105 mm macro lens. I set my lights step back and wait till she's in cruising distance from the "sweet spot" for my lights. Then all I do is raise my hand and she will freeze and flair her fins. All of these photos were shot using the lowest possible ISO on the Nikon D300 (LO-1)which is the equivalent of ISO 100. I increased the output capacity of the flash units to 200% and shot using 1/250th of a second @ F29. If you are up on your camera basics....that's a lot of light needed to get that high aperture. It gives me a lot of detail and color.
This first shot was my normal setting with flash, ISO and aperture (200, 1/125 @f22)
I use two...sometimes three flash units. Nikon has a Commander mode that allows me to put the flash units on remote and adjust the output both individually and as a group. I can use several flashes in this manner if I chose. I shoot in RAW format which allows me to adjust levels (shadow/mid/highlight), color balance, etc. You can download a plug in for photo shop...or often the camera will come with software that allows the processing of the RAW images. If you are not up on RAW...JPEG and TIFF files shoot in 8 channels that basically tell the camera what the settings are for contrast, color, sharpness, etc. With camera RAW you have 16 channels that gives you a lot more latitude. I do have static studio lights...but never really use them. The flash units are my favorite. I never shoot with available light. You just don't get the color and detail."
www.cichlidforums.com/
Aquamojo's comments:
"Ya gotta love this beautiful fish. I never have a problem asking her to pose. Most of the shots were taken from several feet away with a 105 mm macro lens. I set my lights step back and wait till she's in cruising distance from the "sweet spot" for my lights. Then all I do is raise my hand and she will freeze and flair her fins. All of these photos were shot using the lowest possible ISO on the Nikon D300 (LO-1)which is the equivalent of ISO 100. I increased the output capacity of the flash units to 200% and shot using 1/250th of a second @ F29. If you are up on your camera basics....that's a lot of light needed to get that high aperture. It gives me a lot of detail and color.
This first shot was my normal setting with flash, ISO and aperture (200, 1/125 @f22)
I use two...sometimes three flash units. Nikon has a Commander mode that allows me to put the flash units on remote and adjust the output both individually and as a group. I can use several flashes in this manner if I chose. I shoot in RAW format which allows me to adjust levels (shadow/mid/highlight), color balance, etc. You can download a plug in for photo shop...or often the camera will come with software that allows the processing of the RAW images. If you are not up on RAW...JPEG and TIFF files shoot in 8 channels that basically tell the camera what the settings are for contrast, color, sharpness, etc. With camera RAW you have 16 channels that gives you a lot more latitude. I do have static studio lights...but never really use them. The flash units are my favorite. I never shoot with available light. You just don't get the color and detail."
