taking good picture of bettas

[aznb0i]

hi you guys,

im new to taking picture of my fishes. i need help on how to improve my shots and how to have better focus on my fish. my shots are not very clear and sometimes is too dark. need help thanks here are some of my picture i took of my fish please tell me how it is and what needs to be improve thanks. i have a digital camera a coolpix2100 nikon, these are the best picture i have taken soo far.

http://www.freepgs.com/aznb0i/aznb0i/green%20hm.jpg
http://www.freepgs.com/aznb0i/aznb0i/vong%20mask%20female.jpg
http://www.freepgs.com/aznb0i/aznb0i/white%20platnium%20female%20hm%20geno.jpg
http://www.freepgs.com/aznb0i/aznb0i/blue%20metallic.jpg

[aznb0i]

come on people help me out here.

hey man

Looking at your camera, it is not very good for taking aqua pics. It may be a fine camera for reg. pics, but it lacks certain features (like manual selection of Shutter speed and aperature) that are very helpful.

FOr your camera, I would suggest going into the "closeup" mode in the scene modes. Try and see if you White balance can be set to flourescent. And get a LOT more light on the tank, either a compact flourescent HIGH WATTAGE fixture ( you can buy it at Home Depot for about $6 for the metal cone, and $5-15 for the bulb, try to find the one that is called DAYLIGHT) or Halogen spotlight. You want to blanket the tank w/light to fool the camera into thinking it's daylight w/out water.

Your pics are OK, a bit on the small side, and look like they were taken into Photoshop or something similar and WAY oversharpened. Try to read up here and use the advice to take better pics. No matter how much you play with Photoshop bad pics will NOT become good pics, the most you will get are pics that are OBVIOUSLY edited.

If you have any questions, just ask in this thread. I will monitor it closely.
Ed

[aznb0i]

thank you very much! so what do you perfer is a good picture of taking bettas? could you show me some picture that you think is good?

I have never taken pics of bettas, but if you look at last month's POTM contest (in the POTM folder) there is a really cool spawning betta pic.

Just remember, Pics should look Natural, sharp but not Oversharpened.

[aznb0i]

what do you think of this picture all of this is natural

http://img62.photobucket.com/albums/v190/aznb0i/muti_copper_over_HM_male.jpg
http://img62.photobucket.com/albums/v190/aznb0i/gray_copper_hm_male.jpg
http://img62.photobucket.com/albums/v190/aznb0i/royal_blue_HM_young.jpg

Great looking fish. Here are some comments on the pics (keep in mind, these are just guidelines that we here think are things to consider)

1. Pics are cropped WAY too tight. The fish size comparing to the pic size should be natural.
2. The flash is killing the colors on the fish. You can shoot w/out flash by using much improved lighting, and a camera that lets you manually choose your shutter speed (needs to be high).

Otherwise, I think they are fine, and show the fishes posing well. I would love to take a crack at taking pics of these, look very photogenic, but unfortunately dont keep them (look pricey, also) and dont really have access to them locally.