travis

Thanks gnatster. I suspected as much. It's a great beginner-level camera and I've learned a lot about digital photography using it, but I think I'm ready for something with a little more manual adjustment capability (and a better Macro mode)

elzaeer

it's very beautiful photo, sorry for my english, i m french !!

Tyrant

Great manual

standoyo

wow,
very comprehensive!

just to be a fly in the ointment...niko brother...sorry but your aperture and shutter speed steps with regards to aperture f3.5 is incorrect in your list.
from f 2.8 the next stop is f 4.
that makes all the shutters speeds down the line incorrect.
f 3.5 would be like ~2/3 stop smaller than f 2.8
heck we use auto exposure cameras anyways but just slap me.

[work hazard]

cornhusker

niko, i have been trying to take good pictures of my tanks,but they allways come out looking kind of fake.the camera is an olympus C740.so far i've just used the auto setting.ordinary pictures come out great. i'm trying to get a shot of my 75 gal full length.light on tank is 220 watts.how close should i be?lights in room all off?this camera does have manual settings.what should they be?i've seen so many beautiful tank pictures on the different websites,would this be asking too much for this camera model?any input would be greatly appreciated.thank you,cornhusker

niko

Cornhusker,

It's better to have the lights in the room turned off and to shoot at night so the tank is the only bright object. This way you avoid the reflections.

You need to be as close to the tank as possible. Being too far leads to loss of detail in the final picture. Still you cannot be too close to the tank - if in your camera monitor you see distortion of the straight lines then step back and re-focus.

Try to shoot with different manual settings. I cannot tell you what they have to be - that depends on how bright is the tank. Start say with ISO 200, 1/30 and aperture of 2.8. Then do 1/30 and 3.5, 1/30 and 4, 1/30 and 5.6 and so on. Pick the best picture after you see it on your computer screen, not on the camera screen.

--Nikolay

ranchwest

Niko,

Great article.

On a slightly different topic, I also want to point out shutter lag. I hope you haven't covered this somewhere else. I'm not an expert on photography, but I have shot a lot of sports photography and the same principles apply, I believe, to aquarium photography.

The time from when the shutter button is depressed until the shutter actually releases is called shutter lag. This varies tremendously from camera to camera. Since plants don't move much, it really doesn't matter much for plants, but if you want to capture fish in a precise position it matters a lot.

My wife has a DImage camera and it is great except the very long shutter lag. To give a point of reference, I have depressed the shutter button while a baseball pitcher is delivering the ball to the plate and come away with a nice picture of the baseball about to clear the infield (going the other way, off the batter's bat, the ball has travelled about 150 feet at about 90 mph, do the math). Obviously, in an aquarium setting, a fish could be out of the image area.

I've also found that manufacturer claims about shutter lag are not very reliable.

I recommend reading reviews and doing whatever tests you can before buying a camera. Cameras can be great for one purpose and lousy for another.

standoyo

that's a good point, a lot of older pocket digital cameras have camera lag problem...[older than two years] most newer ones have sorted this problem already with faster processing speed.
if you use auto focus this becomes a similar problem. the camera needs to focus first before shooting. best to set it to manual[check if your pocket camera have setting 1m focus or 0.5m] and measure distance from camera accordingly.[you need a tripod]
that way you get almost point of fish in shot when you depress shutter button.
SLR's do not have this problem as they all have manual focussing.

HTH.

ps. sorry to hijack thread nikolay.

truthdesigns

Great write up nikolay I have been studying photography and
you simplified this very well.

Emily Eva

I'm a photographer and searching on internet for enhancing my skills on camera like how to set shutter speed for the situation to avoid blur images. Found this site helpful, it polishes my skills and generate better results.