Photographing The Aquarium?

Has anyone got any tips to pass on about taking decent photos of one's aquarium - especially with a cheapy digital camera that seems to auto focus on the glass.

Any help and ideas gratefully received.

A few ideas:

• Get a better camera
• Disable the flash unless you have an off-camera flash.  You may need to correct the colour balance depending on your camera/lights.  If your camera can't do this, there should be an option in your photo editing software
• If you don't have photo editing software, get some.  There are plenty of free products around
• Use a tripod
• Set the ISO on your camera to it's highest setting if you have the option
• Set the resolution to it's highest setting
• Don't get too close unless you have a macro option
• Don't use the macro option unless you have a tripod

I have just purchased a new digital camera.  Over the next few weeks, as I get to grips with it, I hope to be able to post some ideas about how to take better pictures, I hope that they can be put together with some other stuff as a complete guide to aquarium photography.  But I am unsure how to go about putting this stuff online.  I have had a number of ideas:

• Post as one single post.  This would be a huge post.  I'm not sure, but there might be a limit on size of post
• One post per "chapter"
• Post on a website. I can set up a website on my PC, and just post a link.  My PC is rarely switched off.
• Post on the forum until it has been peer-reviewed and try and persuade Peter to post it in the articles section.

I would welcome any comments, requests or ideas about the content of the article or about it's location before I start writing.

Has anyone got any tips to pass on about taking decent photos of one's aquarium - especially with a cheapy digital camera that seems to auto focus on the glass.

Colin,

Whilst reviewing this post, I noticed I never really addressed your problem with autofocus.  In order to do so, I need to explain a couple of things first:-

There are two basic forms of autofocus; active and passive.  Solutions to your problem depend upon which one your camera has.

• Passive uses software in the camera to analyse something about the picture, it may be contrast or colour or phase of the light.  It uses this info to focus the lens.
• Active uses a beam of light, usually infra-red, fired from the front of your camera and detects the echoes bouncing back from your subject.

Cheaper or older cameras will choose one or other of these systems, more expensive or newer cameras will have both.  They will use passive autofocus until the light level drops below a threshold and then use active autofocus.

Forgive all this preamble, but the problem you have can have different causes or solutions depending upon this info.

Active autofocus is the most likely system to be banjaxed by use through glass.  The infra-red is reflected from the glass and the camera thinks the glass is the subject.  The only way to get round this for aquarium photography is to move back a foot, depress the shutter halfway and then move forward a foot.  On  most cameras, this should lock the autofocus.  It's crude but...  For other photography there are alternative solutions.  I had this problem with a 35mm compact camera I used to take on skiing holidays.  Taking photos of the mountains through the window of the cable-car would focus on the glass not the mountain.  The solution was a piece of masking tape over the infra-red emitter.  The AF system would then focus on infinity and my landscapes were in focus!
Passive autofocus is more robust because it is analysing the image entering the camera. Two things can screw it up.  First, insufficient light.  This is a problem we will be coming across again and again photographing our fish.  Second, sometimes the AF system can be fooled if there is any dirt or dust on the glass.  This is easy, you should be taking photos through clean glass anyway.  (That's clean on both sides).

Sounds fantastic Steve. I love photography, but I'm still getting to grips with the more technical side of things. Aquarium photography is a real tricky one!

Fair comment.  One of the free hosts I have used before is 000webhost.com - I believe they still don't force adverts and only require an occasional account login to keep the account going. Might be worth a look.

Hi Colin, all good info on the focus issues.  Re flash have you tried putting a plain white sheet of paper in front of the flash bulb?  It diffuses the flash but still gives the camera enough added light to pick up the details and colours and also fire with a quick enough shutter to reduce/eliminate blur.  Its a trick I use with my DSLR instead of an expensive flash diffuser! It should reduce the reflection in the glass/acrylic, alternatively try putting your finger over the flash bulb (not the lens!) that reduces it even further but can blot it out altogether depending on how chubby your digits are! Your camera should set the white balance up automatically once flash is enabled but if possible try to change that to incandescent (normally a light bulb symbol) when using a diffuser as the pictures may come out with very high blue tones. 

As a left field thought (thought only, never tried it myself or even thought it through properly but thats the point of a forum right?! - I dont know if it would be advisable but you can get cheapy waterproof bags on ebay for your camera, they come in all sizes for all cameras, cost a couple of quid, they have a lens port and theyll protect up to 20 meters or so - more than adequate unless your tank was made by those boys in Las Vegas that are on Discovery channel at the moment!  You either hold it under water and manually operate the shutter or you can set up a timed shutter and put the camera in to the tank - I wouldnt know how that would effect/not effect your water parametters (it shouldnt do - theyre plain PVC, so long as no lubes are used or sealant has leaked it should be okay, the camera would only be in for 15 seconds as you place it and let the 10s countdown go off) - you could then get some cool action shots close up.  The tank lights should provide enough lighting so you shouldnt have to use a flash (fish would almost certainly not appreciate a flash going off under water, flash underwater always needs diffusing if used, most diving standard housings have diffusers built in - how we'd love to have flourescent lighting underwater like you would have on top of your tank - the contraptions I have seen divers with purely to give them extra light is amazing - huge multi-armed set ups with tv studio sized lights hanging off them!). Some digital cameras have an underwater mode that compensates for the loss of colours in water, if not available then Auto White Balance would be okay, you can tart it up with some software later on.  As I say - thought only but would be interested to hear if anyone has tried that?

I made a mistake in my post about autofocus systems above. I got the passive and active headings the wrong way round on the last two items.  I have fixed this. Sorry!