Building A Fish Photographing Fish Tank

[Ludwig Venter]

I intend to build a little tank to be used exclusively for the purposes of photographing smaller fish.

It will only be 4cm wide, x 10cm high and x 20cm long.

3 or 4 questions about this:

1. Do I leave a clear background, or do I paint the back glass Black, white, green or blue to give the best contrast effect.
2. Positioning of the light. What will produce the best effect Direct top/down, front angle top/down, rear angle top/down, direct bottom/up (it’ll be a clear bottom), rear angle bottom/up, front angle bottom/up, or lastly, direct rear or direct front.
3. What angle or distance should the camera be held from the tank to avoid reflection from the camera flash off the front glass.

Or alternatively, I should just keep different coloured paper sheets to use as backgrounds to suit the particular fish being photographed.

The idea is to take some water from the tank of the fish to be photographed, place it in this little tank, take my photos and put the fish back in its own tank… don’t think that will cause too much stress?

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I would keep the back clear and use different backing colours for different fish. Might be best using matt type backing to stop light reflections as well.

With regards to the lighting I would tend to go to the front and side a bit so the fish isnt in direct full on light but is still lit from the front. might need to experiment a bit with this though.

For the flash it depends on your camera and type of flash. When I photograph fish I use a large macro lens which lets me stand about 5ft away but still get a full close up of the fish. If you have a compact camera then you could just try putting a bit of white paper in front of the flash to diffuse the light a little. have the camera at an angle to the front of the tank will help to as the flash isnt then bouncing straight back at the lens.

 

[llamalord305]

I found this site a long time ago, and im glad I rememebered it. Try this link out.

http/www.waynesthisandthat.com/photochamber.htm

 

[Ludwig Venter]

I found this site a long time ago, and im glad I rememebered it. Try this link out.

http/www.waynesthisandthat.com/photochamber.htm

Wow!... Thanks... Answers all my basic questions, but then... I think I've got the wrong camera!! (& it cost me a lot)

 

[mini_matt]

what cammera did you get? any decent camra will let you change the apature and iso sholdbe okay unles its a point and shoot but sometimes they can do a nice job on pics

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Right!... I've finally managed to cut the glass to my specs, and then decided to make it a dual purpose tank.... The bottom of this is slotted, to serve as a breeding trap as well.... Looking forward to test it as a photographing tank... (BTW... the fruity decor in the background was not intentional.