[leebca]

Poseiden,

You've probably been asked a million times, but I just now have a digital camera to start photographing (I'm now dangerous!) my fishes. (Olympus 750UZ).

Is it better to use the flash for taking their pictures, or not?

I guess you need to keep in mind that my aquariums are for FOWLR and so the lighting is only good enough to see my fishes (vs. good enough to grow/feed corals, etc.).

Be gentle on me. I'm about as ignorant as a newborn when it comes to photography (and lighting). I don't know an f stop from a stop sign.

[Poseidon]

LOL!

No problem Lee. If you can get a shutter speed of faster then 1/250 of a second without flash, then you will be fine. If not, then you will be forced to use flash.

Here are some things you can try:

Set your ISO (film speed) to 400, or 800 if you have it.

Put your camera on "aperture priority" sometimes it is "A" or "Av", and set it to the LOWEST value you can, usually 4, or 2.8, sometimes a P&S will have f2.0.

With you controlling the ISO and the aperture, the camera will pick the FASTEST shutter speed it can get.

Try this, point your camera at the tank, and pretend like you are going to take a picture. Look at the values in the viewfinder, and post what it says. If you can tell me what the camera thinks it needs for a good picture, I will know about how much light you are working with.

So post your cameras chosen Shutter speed, Aperture, and ISO. They will be numbers like 1/125 for shutter, f4 for Aperture, and maybe 100 for ISO...

[leebca]

Thanks guy! I'll postpone my proper reply with numbers until the July 4th weekend. I'm traveling on company business right now.

In some 'trial and error' efforts (mostly error ) I noticed that the colors of the fish seem better with the flash. Is this a function of the kind of light I have on the aquarium vs. the kind of light the flash emits? or is it just intensity?

Thanks!

[Poseidon]

It has to do with both actually. If you use the flash, the camera "knows" what the white balance should be set at, if you don't use flash, then the camera has to guess at the white balance.

Sometimes I like the colors with flash, sometimes the colors look exaggerated (sp?) to me.

Almost all the pictures in my gallery are without flash, but they are all taken under halides too.