Flash makes it so much better

[dsfireman]

Here are a couple recent attempts with flashes added. I thought it would surely freak the fish out, but they seemed to come out more once they started flashing.

 

[JaYbIrD1969]

There is certainly a place for flash photography and in a reef aquarium, do to the "unusual" lighting, you can aquire a faster shutter speed at lower ISOs resulting in very sharp images. However it does not do well at capturing the "pop" of colors that you get from the color temperature of your reef lighting. It washes out the flourescing of corols and some fishes. Its fun to photograph some very vibrant corals with and without flash and see the difference. they are beautiful in different ways.