Aquariums- ARRRGHHH

TheKnat

TheKnat

TheKnat

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Lancashire, UK
I went to Vancouver aquarium today and I had a load of difficulty trying to get pictures of the exhibits. This is with my D40X and a 18-200mm lens.

I first tried leaving it on 'Auto' mode... no chance.

I tried setting it to manual, having a high aperture and faster shutter speed. This just couldn't get enough light in to make a decent shot. I tried this with and without the flash but the flash just made the pictures unusable because of the reflection.

In the end I have to use a slower shutter speed and the shots look ok, but every one of them is a bit blurry. I'm assuming this is to do with the fact that fish and water based mammals don't usually stay still for long.

I might be going back there at again (when it stops raining), but before I do I need some advice on what I can do to get better pictures. Anyone fancy giving me a clue ?
 
What was your ISO?

If you crank the ISO up you could use a faster shutter speed therefore less blur :)
 
Had it set to its highest level (think its Hi-1 ?).

I'll upload a couple of the NEF files and show what I mean about the blur.
 
i tried to take photos of fishies, and then gave up. need something wider than 3.5 i think!
 
OK here are 3 pictures out of the bunch I took. These are the 3 I liked the most.

jelly.jpg

NEF

worms.jpg

NEF

turtle.jpg

NEF

I've only changed the pictures slightly in Photoshop Elements, as I was trying to improve them a bit. Not sure if it can be done really.
 
Problem is your IS lens wont stop action. So you need a fast lens. A 50mm f1.8 or a Sigma 30mm f1.4 would be perfect.

You've only got 2 choices for freezing action, fast lens, or flash. And the latter I would guess is banned in the aquarium.
 
If your using a fast lens, how do you get over the lack of light in there ? I tried setting the lens to a faster setting but all that happened was that the picture was virtually black. This was with the highest ISO and aperture settings.
 
TheKnat said:
If your using a fast lens, how do you get over the lack of light in there ? I tried setting the lens to a faster setting but all that happened was that the picture was virtually black. This was with the highest ISO and aperture settings.
Click to expand...

What were the highest ISO and aperture settings you could/did use?
 
Use a polariser if you can, use a tripod as darker pictures require a stable ground.

Push you apeture to the max and play around with your sutter speed to get the optimal exposure. Take your time, pump up your ISO.

Remeber if the pictures are too dark you can always edit them in Photoshop
 
I'm pretty sure I was set to Hi1 and f5.6.

Just had a look now and the lens can go to 3.5 so I'm not really sure why it was at this higher setting. So I suppose the best thing to do will be to get a 50mm lens where I can go down to 1.8?
 
The turtle isn't too bad at all, despite the high ISO. The problem is that you focussed on the front flipper rather than the eye. That coupled with the high iso and slight movement means a shot that's not as sharp as it could be.

If it had been me, I'd have used spot metering or center weighted, so the metering doesn;t try to compensate for the dark backgrounds and underexpose by a couple of stops and recover it later.

Aquarium shots are notoriuosly tricky, you really need a lot of light and when ever I've tried it on my mates tank I've used a flash overhead and f2.8. Even then I've struggled with the flighty lil tinkers.
 
TheKnat said:
If your using a fast lens, how do you get over the lack of light in there ? I tried setting the lens to a faster setting but all that happened was that the picture was virtually black
Click to expand...
You're confused - A faster lens doesn't mean a faster shutter speed.

A faster lens refers to a wider aperture.

e.g A lens with a max aperture of F2.8 is faster than one at F3.5
It's faster because F2.8 lets in more light than F3.5 :)
 
Abz said:
Use a polariser if you can, use a tripod as darker pictures require a stable ground.

Push you apeture to the max and play around with your sutter speed to get the optimal exposure. Take your time, pump up your ISO.

Remeber if the pictures are too dark you can always edit them in Photoshop
Click to expand...

I visited the aquarium in vancouver a few months back, and had the same issue, all my shots down in the underwater viewing areas were at ISO 1600 without a tripod, it is pretty impossible to get any decent shots....

I was using a 2.8 lens and was getting stupidly low shutter speeds. I think a 1.4 might of helped....But a tripod would have been my best bet, but no chance of freezing any motion!

A polariser would not help due to the nature of CPL's or any pol reducing light entering the lens by up to 2 stops, and sometimes more....That and the lack of sunlight it would be fairly pointless. Will dig out a couple of my shots, see what shutter speeds I got...
 
Seems the best I got was 1/40th sec when shooting the sealions...and 1/8th sec at ISO1600 f/2.8 so you have done well, my shots are ok...Tripod might of helped a little
 
SDK^ said:
You're confused - A faster lens doesn't mean a faster shutter speed.

A faster lens refers to a wider aperture.

e.g A lens with a max aperture of F2.8 is faster than one at F3.5
It's faster because F2.8 lets in more light than F3.5 :)
Click to expand...

Aha thanks for clearing that up. I'm still getting used to all the right terminology. I'm going to try and find a 50mm lens today whilst I'm out, so that might help with the situation.
 
n30_mkii said:
I visited the aquarium in vancouver a few months back, and had the same issue, all my shots down in the underwater viewing areas were at ISO 1600 without a tripod, it is pretty impossible to get any decent shots....

I was using a 2.8 lens and was getting stupidly low shutter speeds. I think a 1.4 might of helped....But a tripod would have been my best bet, but no chance of freezing any motion!

A polariser would not help due to the nature of CPL's or any pol reducing light entering the lens by up to 2 stops, and sometimes more....That and the lack of sunlight it would be fairly pointless. Will dig out a couple of my shots, see what shutter speeds I got...
Click to expand...

Shows how much I know :p

Ok so no need for a CPL. Most fishes tend to stand still anyway. Take shots of those only.

When I went to London aquarium about 7 months ago, I had the Sony DCS V1 , I set it to Auto and got some decent pictures
 
Poo. I went out and got myself a nice new nikon AF 50mm 1.8 lens... only to find out that I need AF-S lenses for my D40X to auto-focus. Does such a lens exist ?

I also got a tripod whilst I was there :D
 
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