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).