Do you have any advice on taking photos of fish in a fish tank?

I just have a regular consumer-end digital camera.Do you have any advice on taking photos of fish in a fish tank?
I like Sunnyjay's answer better. Add to that...





If you have a tripod or minipod of some kind, use that. Set up the shot by focusing on the spot where you expect to take the picture and then wait until the fish finds his way into your composed shot. I did that in this sample by focusing on the glass piece before the fish swam out from behind it.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstei鈥?/a>





If you are using the tank's fluorescent light, first try by setting your camera's white balance to fluorescent. There are MANY kinds of fluorescent light, though, so it might not work. If the colors don't come out right, get out your manual and see if you can set a custom white balance with your camera.





My sample has a pretty high ISO and that probably won't come out so good with your camera, based on your description. You will probably want to limit your ISO to 400, if not less. Maybe your camera can handle ISO 800 okay, though. Fortunately, fish swim kind of slow a lot of the time, and you can get away with a long shutter time, like 1/10th of a second. You probably don't have a remote, so just push the shutter button in gently and HOLD IT IN until you are sure the picture is taken. This will minimize the camera shake.





If you find that you get a reflection of the camera on the glass, you can take a piece of black paper and cut a hole out to match your lens size and then poke the lens through that hole. The black paper (or cloth) will cut out the reflection.





As Sunnyjay said, just keep experimenting by changing different settings until it comes out the way you want it to. It's free.





Good luck.Do you have any advice on taking photos of fish in a fish tank?
You're welcome. I hope it worked out okay.

Report Abuse

Since the tank is most likely reflective glass, you won't want to use a flash. Which means you'll want to use a tripod, or steady it in some secure way. Then play with lighting coming in from the top of the tank, through the water, not the glass. You may also want to play with a dark, neutral background behind the tank to prevent silhouetting from background light.





Just play around with it since it is digital, you can just delete until you get what works for you.
Turn on tanks florecent light,turn flash on camera off or put finger over flash. Worked for me.