RE: [GSAS-Member] 3 7 inch tinfoil barbs up for adoption

["SUSAN WELENOFSKY" <welenofsky@comcast.net>]

Wow is all I can say! Is it a digital camera you use, and if so, how many
pixils? Do you have a macro setting?

Susan

-----Original Message-----
From: gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com
[mailto:gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com] On Behalf Of Matt Staroscik
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 11:05 AM
To: Greater Seattle Aquarium Society member chat
Subject: Re: [GSAS-Member] 3 7 inch tinfoil barbs up for adoption

On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 07:57:38AM -0800, John ?Ruhland wrote:
> How did you take those beautiful photographs?
> John

Lots of light, a very high shutter speed, and patience. When I take 
aquarium photos I get a 1-2% keeper rate. 

More specifically, I have several studio strobes that I am into the tank 
from various angles. Usually 2 strobes is enough: 1 firing straight down 
into the water, and another at about 45 deg to the side of the camera.

I turn the camera's internal flash off and trigger the strobes with a sync
cable. Shutter 
speed is at least 1/500. Aperture is as small as possible to maximize 
depth of field. I usually lock the focus because the AF on my camera is 
too slow to shoot fast-moving fish.

My strobes are "dumb" so I have to run the camera in full manual mode 
which means I need to take a few test shots to make sure I have the 
exposure right. Once all that is done, I just blaze away and sort 
through the pics on the computer looking for keepers.

It's hard to minimize reflections off the glass, sometimes I need to use 
black felt around the camera. Keeping the lens close to the tank helps 
too.

I can't overstate how important adding light is. The on-camera flash 
won't cut it. You'll get lucky sometimes, but a powerful off-camera 
flash is the way to go.

Of course, if your camera can do very high ISO you may not need all that 
extra light, but my camera falls apart (gets noisy) above ISO 100. If I 
had a clean ISO 1600 I wouldn't have to flash as much, though they would 
still be useful. 

Hope that helps!
--
Matt Staroscik
matt@wrongcrowd.com | http://wrongcrowd.com
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