Nano pics from a newbie photographer

[xxxbadfishxxx]

Well, many of you may or may not know, fish photography is really hard, Fish are fast, White Balancing sucks, and pics usually appear grainy because of the higher ISO needed to get non blurry pics. Well, here is my latest batch, i am pretty upset with the white spots you can see in the water, i think this is because for these pics i turned off the powerheads, so anything in the water column sticks out like a sore thumb. I am also relatively new to post-processing using photoshop. Anyway, i would like some of your comments, and advice if you have.

Full Tank Shot

Purple Firefish

True Perc

Sun Polyps

GSP

GSP Close Up

Xenia

Rainbow Ric

Zoos

 

[Zoa~Goddess]

Very good pics.

 

[VoidRaven]

Can you provide some more details? Equipment? Tripod? ISO?

I don't think I've ever shot higher than ISO 400 on my tank shots but I'd have to check. You really should not have to go to ISO 800 or ISO 1600 to get tank shots.

 

[Gundo5000]

Nice shots!

 

[GSMguy]

where did you get your fish???
the true perc?

 

[Blazer88]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9022509#post9022509 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by VoidRaven
Can you provide some more details? Equipment? Tripod? ISO?

I don't think I've ever shot higher than ISO 400 on my tank shots but I'd have to check. You really should not have to go to ISO 800 or ISO 1600 to get tank shots.

Why do you say you don't need to go to ISO 800? Setting a higher ISO will allow a faster shutter speed while keeping the same aperture. I am always at ISO 800 when I'm shooting fish.

 

[VoidRaven]

Ok, allow me to amend my statement....in the limited amount of tank photography I have done I have never needed to go to ISO 800 that I can recall. I could be wrong...I don't do tank photography much so I can't recall off the top of my head what my settings were...but I try to stay around 400. I guess I should note, however, that many of my fish hover so I don't need to chase them around.

 

[Reefing102]

Newbie Photographer? Those are excellent pics

 

[xxxbadfishxxx]

Thanks guys, they are some of my better of my fish pics, honestly it took me like 30 shots to get that true perc. Camera is a Nikon D50 with a Nikkor 18-70mm DX lens. I did use a tripod, and did shoot in automatic for the fish with no flash.

I did turn off the powerheads so that the corals and fish dont move as much, but then you see everything in the water column, how do you get around this? You can see this most in the purple firefish picture.

As for post processing, i dont know much, besides cropping, auto color/contrast, and then adding borders. What else should be done? I did sharpen some pictures, but it honestly didnt do much.

and i got the True Perc at a local fish store, had to wait a long time for the one i wanted.