Purple Firefish for critque

[Pyro120]

Hey, I was wondering if you can give me a couple pointers on how to make my pictures better. I took about 100 pictures and none of them came out. This one was one of the better ones - I can't seem to get anything in focus, even in manual focus with 8.0 aperature. I had the shutter speed at 125 I beleive for this particular shot.

http://aquatic-photography.com/gallery/files/3/5/0/pfirefish.jpg


...Also, if anybody can give me a couple pointers to taking a full tank shot, it would help a lot. I'm having trouble getting a good shot of my 30g without bluring the entire thing.

[Roy W.]

My guess, is that you need to use a tripod :)

[elTwitcho]

Are you positive those shots were taken at F8.0 and shutter speed 1/125th? That seems like stuff you wouldn't be able to get under any tank lights to me. I'm inclined to think your shutter speed is something other than 1/125th and you're getting motion blur and camera shake. If you're stuck using autofocus only, it sometimes helps to prefocus and then fine tune by moving the camera closer or further from the subject. That way the photo is taken the moment the fish is in focus by pressing the button fullway down. Otherwise, the fish often swims out of focus by the time the shot is taken.

As for other improvements, just some common sense stuff, clean your glass and don't get so close that you have a reflection in the shot. It's a pretty good start nonetheless

[Pyro120]

I'm not sure if it was at 8.0 AND 1/125, but I know I had taken shots ranging from those. I'll make sure to mark my shutter speeds down next time along with the aperature settings.

Using a tripod for most shots.

I used the manual focus on my Sony DSC-V1, but still can't get the hang of it. It is in .1m, .2m, .5m, 1m, 3m ect settings. I'm pretty good with judging meters between physics and swimming - any hints to make sure I have the shot in good focus other than just look at the LCD?


I normally do clean my glass with a mag float, but when I get too close to the bottom by the sandbed I stop using it because it kicks up a ton of sand. I was just planning on taking some pictures of a coral uptop anyways, but I figured I got one out of 60 or 70 so I tried some more fish.


I'm just going to keep trying - I'll post some more whenever I find time this week hopefully.