Hi all,
I thought I would share my method and gear for taking photos of fish in a tank. Most fish keepers like to take pics of their tank to share on the web. You can , with some practice take a relatively good photo of the fish without any special flash or just using your smart phones or point and shoot camera. It's easily doable, and the pics can be very nice. That is what you think until you see someone else's picture that just looks better. The lighting is different or the fish just stands out. That's when you say to yourself. "Gee, I wish my pictures looked like that." Well, Here you go then. Here is a detailed method to improve your fish photos using Off the Camera flash. Now hold on, I know what you are thinking here. "just what I need, another expensive hobby, or costly equipment that you need a PhD to figure out how to use." Actually if you want to spend a lot on complicated equipment, you certainly could . Many people drop thousands of dollars on camera gear without batting an eye. If you are one of those, more power to you, read along here for the basics and then go spend away. I would if I could! New Toys are fun. If you are like me though and you are generally budget constrained and can't just go out an drop a few grand on new gear, you are in luck! Read on.
My technique here is far from perfect, but it works for me. I have a hobby of trying to re-use old stuff, that includes camera gear. For this guide, I am going to draw from my Pentax camera gear. This gear is still widely available used on ebay and various online stores. The flash trigger is the only part of this that is not really old, but is very cheap. If you want to substitute your current DSLR (Nikon,Canon, etc) , the technique and equivalent gear will still work with some trial and error. I take no responsibility there if it doesn't.
Here is what you need..
1.Digital SLR... Pentax k20 D (current used price $150-200)
2.Pentax or compatible lens .... Pentax F 35-70mm ( Price used $35-$50)
3.Flash .. AF200T Pentax (Price $15-20)
4.Speedlight trigger.. (price $15-25)
5.Diffuser aka Paper Towels (cost $1)
Total cost for a really useful camera system for Aquarium Photography using off the camera flash ...$250-$300 with the gear I use here. Seriously, you could easily do it way cheaper depending on the camera and lens you pick. I am using these because the K20D and that F35-70 lens are something I use all the time and have for years. They are real work horses. Alternatively you could literally spend hundreds to thousands more on high end gear that you will use in pretty much the same fashion as I use these.
1.Digital SLR... Pentax k20 D (current used price $150-200) . This camera is 14 megapixals. That is way more than most people will ever need for fish tank pictures. You could make 16"X 20 " (220+ PPI resolution from this, which is really excellent quality by most standards. But lets face it most of us will not even print these. We will post them on facebook, forums, and texts in which case you are limited by the resolution of your monitor or phone screen anyway.
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2. Pentax or compatible lens .... Pentax F 35-70mm ( Price used $35-$50)
Could be many kinds, but a lens in the 28-80mm range with decent close up abilities should work. I would suggest getting a lens that you can manually change the aperture on. It makes it much easier when you are shooting the tank, IMO. Many newer lens do not have this feature any more, as it is done in the camera.
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3. Flash .. AF200T Pentax (Price $15-20)
You could easily spend hundreds on your flash. They have ones that you can sync to your camera and remotely fire. They work great but aren't really necessary. You can make do with flashes that are ancient by today's standards and go back to the film camera days. That is what I used here for my example pictures. The one I am showing is a small flash unit that can be fired in manual mode. You can literally change the settings with the slide of a switch. There is nothing fancy or complicated about it.
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If you go this route you will need a cheap flash trigger. You could spend hundreds on flash triggers also if thats your budget but again, its really not necessary.
4. Speedlight trigger.. (price $15-25) I bought mine on ebay for $15 from China. It has 2 channels, some have more. Mine came with one transmitter and two triggers, so I could use 2 flashes at once if I want. The pictures in this article were made with only one flash. You simply select the channel on the transmitter and receiver (must be the same number) . The transmitter goes on the camera on the hot shoe for the the flash, the trigger (receiver) goes on the flash..
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Transmitter:
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Camera with transmitter:
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Receiver:
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