Tank photos with V. regani

[Lee Nuttall]

A few photos of the male Vieja regani in aquarium 2.

I like the first shot as it shows the mixture of the (hopefully) naturally looking underwater enviroment of the fish and the plain boring outside enviroment of the fish house.







Lee.

[Nikola]

Realy a show specimen regani

[smitty]

What a great looking fish.

[Lee Nuttall]

Thanks all, he certainly is a lovely fish.

[Norcal_Cichlid]

Your tanks are always bad ass!

[Kevin Cumberton]

How do you set up the room for taking tank shot? Special Lighting? How do you set the camera?

[Lee Nuttall]

Thanks for the comments.

Kevin, i can tell you that the photography set up is a basic as you can get. This set of photos are taken without a flash on the camera. High iso settings, low aperture and a very slow shutter speed. Lighting is simply from the tank lights, although i added extra to brighten the tank somewhat. I like to give shaded areas to each end of the tank, rather completely lighting the whole, as i think it adds effect. The room needs to be completely dark, or else you will get reflections from other sources.

The hardest bit when taking these type of photos is the waiting game. The subject, in this case the regani, has to be very still. Any movement and the fish will appear blurred. I usually use overhead off camera flash gear, but to get the effect of the whole tank, you need to use no flash. Unless you had a lot of cash, you could by enough external flashes to light the whole tank. Very expensive, but a lot easier.

Lee.

[Alex Odesit]

A+ Lee, for both tank set up and Regani
It's hard to believe (I do believe you of course) that you use slow shatter speed with low aperture, because your whole tank and fish itself looks pretty sharp and not blurred. You must use expensive camera with very good lens mate! What is that?
Alex

[Kevin Cumberton]

Thanks Lee.

[Lee Nuttall]

A+ Lee, for both tank set up and Regani
It's hard to believe (I do believe you of course) that you use slow shatter speed with low aperture, because your whole tank and fish itself looks pretty sharp and not blurred. You must use expensive camera with very good lens mate! What is that?
Alex

Cameras a Nikon D90 with VR lens. A good camera but would not freeze the fish any better than a low end at the slow shutter speed i'm using, the fish has to more or less play statues.

Good cameras come into their own with higher iso settings. These photos are at an iso of 400, even 800 are pretty usuable. Low end cameras with high iso range would appear quite grainy. Still just to take a photo of a fish, it's much easier to use overhead flash guns.

Here's another photo
Infomation:
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/25
Aperture 5.0, the fish was deadly still at these settings.



Thanks for the interest.

[Alex Odesit]

Very nice mate.
Thanks for the info, gonna try it to replicate with my fish and old 9 y old Canon G3... if it has simmilar ISO settings.
Alex

[DENCIO]

Very nice ... what are the size of your aquarium?

[Sam Tan]

Very pretty tank you have there. Mind sharing the size of your tank and what kind of filtration system you are using?

[Lee Nuttall]

Thanks,

This particular tank measures 8ft, 2.5ft, 4ft wide. The filtration method is loosley based on this idea:

http://www.backtonature.se/english/tips_filter.html

Filter hasn't been maintained as yet, since i set the tank up in Nov/Dec 2009.