London Aquarium pics...comments?
Discussion
Right,
Well, I went there, I took over 400 shots, I deleted about half straight away, and I've scoured the others for anything that looks half-decent. Settings were:-
- EOS20D
- 18-55 USM kit-lens
(I'm saving up, alright!)
- ISO-1600
- f4.5 - f5.6, depending on what the camera would allow. Mostly 5 or 5.6.
- c. 1/50 shutter speed, sometimes less to get the necessary exposure...started at 1/100 and everything was coming out far too dark!!!
- Varied the white-balance, mostly used 'sunlight', some at 8,000 celsius, some as low as 4,500 celsius, depending on tank light.
- No flash.
Oh...and guess which muppet forgot to fit his newly-purchased circular polariser!!! Thought it was on there, got back to friends house to tidy camera stuff up and discovered it was still in the side-pocket!!! Looking back though, and given it appeared to lose me about 2-stops of light when I tried it out on Friday, I'm glad I left it off...half the shots were borderline exposures anyway.
Apologies for there being so many (7)...I couldn't decide which were better, so thought I'd let the experts decide. All comments welcome, especially constructive criticism!
Thanks all,
Martin
Well, I went there, I took over 400 shots, I deleted about half straight away, and I've scoured the others for anything that looks half-decent. Settings were:-
- EOS20D
- 18-55 USM kit-lens
(I'm saving up, alright!) - ISO-1600
- f4.5 - f5.6, depending on what the camera would allow. Mostly 5 or 5.6.
- c. 1/50 shutter speed, sometimes less to get the necessary exposure...started at 1/100 and everything was coming out far too dark!!!
- Varied the white-balance, mostly used 'sunlight', some at 8,000 celsius, some as low as 4,500 celsius, depending on tank light.
- No flash.
Oh...and guess which muppet forgot to fit his newly-purchased circular polariser!!!
Thought it was on there, got back to friends house to tidy camera stuff up and discovered it was still in the side-pocket!!! Looking back though, and given it appeared to lose me about 2-stops of light when I tried it out on Friday, I'm glad I left it off...half the shots were borderline exposures anyway. Apologies for there being so many (7)...I couldn't decide which were better, so thought I'd let the experts decide. All comments welcome, especially constructive criticism!
Thanks all,
Martin
Lion fish for me. Would've been particularly stunning if you could have opened up a bit more and narrowed the depth of field, but I appreciate you were limited by hardware.
The anemone is compositionally okay, and the contrast is good, but they are (to me) rather boring to look at unless there are clownfish living in them, so it doesn't catch a whole load of my interest.
The others, and especially in relation to the above two, lack a certain "zing", either from slightly dodgy sharpness or lack of vivid colours.
Very good effort though - always difficulto to score nice shots when your angles and compositional options are limited as you are behind a glass wall.
I've always wanted to indulge in a bit of underwater photography when I dive (I'm in the best part of the world for that kind of stuff), but the cost of a decent housing puts me right off.
The anemone is compositionally okay, and the contrast is good, but they are (to me) rather boring to look at unless there are clownfish living in them, so it doesn't catch a whole load of my interest.
The others, and especially in relation to the above two, lack a certain "zing", either from slightly dodgy sharpness or lack of vivid colours.
Very good effort though - always difficulto to score nice shots when your angles and compositional options are limited as you are behind a glass wall.
I've always wanted to indulge in a bit of underwater photography when I dive (I'm in the best part of the world for that kind of stuff), but the cost of a decent housing puts me right off.
They look very good quality. No need for a polariser with those as you'd just have lost shutter speed and had problems with subject movement and camera shake. Like the head-on one of the shark, just need to crop off that intruding fish head on the top left, and maybe clone out some others if you're feeling ambitious.
Cheers guys,
The head-on shark and the lion fish are MY favourites...agreed about cropping the shark and also the depth-of-field on the lion-fish, but was working at the ragged edge as was.
Anemone...I have a few pics of them with clowns in, but plainer, sprawling anemones and none looked compositionally 'right'...there's a half-decent one on my photobucket page along with a handful of other shots that didn't quite make it on here:-
http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m5
(Caution: 500k-1MB pics on there)
In general, the one frustration was the light. In the smaller tanks when the fish came to the fore they were often back-lit...that's the best puffer-fish from about 12, and there was a lovely box-fish which sadly didn't come out quite right. And in the large tank it was too diffuse to get excellent detail...although I've tried a few 'arty' ones including beams coming down from the surface of the shark-tank (will put one up on photobucket).
As for Wolverine the terrapin...I think he was trying to seduce the one underneath by poking her eyes out...and he was being very persistent!
The head-on shark and the lion fish are MY favourites...agreed about cropping the shark and also the depth-of-field on the lion-fish, but was working at the ragged edge as was.
Anemone...I have a few pics of them with clowns in, but plainer, sprawling anemones and none looked compositionally 'right'...there's a half-decent one on my photobucket page along with a handful of other shots that didn't quite make it on here:-
http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m5
(Caution: 500k-1MB pics on there)
In general, the one frustration was the light. In the smaller tanks when the fish came to the fore they were often back-lit...that's the best puffer-fish from about 12, and there was a lovely box-fish which sadly didn't come out quite right. And in the large tank it was too diffuse to get excellent detail...although I've tried a few 'arty' ones including beams coming down from the surface of the shark-tank (will put one up on photobucket).
As for Wolverine the terrapin...I think he was trying to seduce the one underneath by poking her eyes out...and he was being very persistent!
Personally I like the puffer fish most of all, it's such an unusual fish.
Your Lion fish is greta but you do get a bit distracted by the others in the background.
However I have to say 1600ASA and that quality is lovely. It's always going to be tricky to get good shots with the lighting environment in aquariums plus the glass.
Maybe this is one of those times a 50mm F1.8 would really come in handy (and second hand very cheap).
Cheers
Chris
Your Lion fish is greta but you do get a bit distracted by the others in the background.
However I have to say 1600ASA and that quality is lovely. It's always going to be tricky to get good shots with the lighting environment in aquariums plus the glass.
Maybe this is one of those times a 50mm F1.8 would really come in handy (and second hand very cheap).
Cheers
Chris
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