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Fishy Focus

danmullan

danmullan

Member
Joined
18 Feb 2012
Messages
148
Location
Hampshire
Hi guys,

Was hoping for a few pointers. I was taking a few pics of my P.Furcatus' (forktail rainbows) and as usual, the settings seemed to be okay and getting good in focus pictures on the camera display, but when I uploaded them to my comp I realised that in most only part of the fish was in focus.

They are pretty active so it's hard enough getting pics anyway. Could anyone reccomend any particular setting adjustments to get some really clear shots?

Here are a few of the better shots of the dominant male:

6974163465_8a89c2f1f1.jpg
P.Furcatus 1 by DMullan91, on Flickr

6974168579_d33478ae4c.jpg
P.Furcatus 4 by DMullan91, on Flickr

6828051860_c870751055.jpg
P.Furcatus 6 by DMullan91, on Flickr

6828045868_db1fb7f3a2.jpg
P.Furcatus 3 by DMullan91, on Flickr

Cheers
Dan
 
Fixed the images for you. For reference, you can click on the "Share" button above the image, and use the BBCode. Copy and paste the whole lot like this:

Code: 
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmullan91/6828045868/][ATTACH=full]47910[/ATTACH][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmullan91/6828045868/]P.Furcatus 3[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/dmullan91/]DMullan91[/url], on Flickr

:)
 

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You don’t give the settings you used so it’s a guess as to what you can change. It would be hard to improve on these without an off camera flash, they are pretty good for these hyper little fish. The more light you have on the tank the better, you need a fast shutter speed, the F number needs to be low which makes getting the whole fish in focus difficult, the iso needs to be high. It looks from the pics that the F numbers are already low and there is a bit of noise so your iso is high already. On the second pic the tail end of the fish and the eye are out of focus as the f number (depth of field) is low. In the last pic the eye and mouth are in focus but the body is closer to the camera than the eye so most of the body is out of focus. Shoot as far as you can from the fish and crop it. When the fish is moving in a straight line, not turned away from the camera it is easier to get the whole fish in focus.
 
Try and focus on the eyes, use only the center focus point when you shot and recompose the scene when you crop the photo. You kinda need more than f5.6, f8 maybe but I don't think you can achieve that without more light. A flash unit above the aquarium would be great.
 
What camera & lens are you using?
get as much light on the subject as possible
you need to put your camera in to manual mode and find the best balancing act between ISO, shutter speed, apature.

you need a small apature (high F-stop) to allow you to get more in focus.
you need a low ISO to reduce grain.
you need a fast shutter speed to freeze your fast moving fish.

The problem with all these requirements is that you are cutting down the sensitivity of the camera and this may lead to an under exposed photo. every time you stop down (increase f number) you half the amount of light available to the camera sensor, this is also the case with ISO. This is why you need as much light on the tank as possible, make sure that the light is coming from above as you do not want reflections.
Make sure you are shooting in uncompressed RAW format, this will mean that if you get an under exposed image you will be able to work wonders on it in Adobe lightroom or photoshop to restore original colour and details.
 
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