Jason Baliban, renowned aquascaper, aquarium photographer, and owner of ProjectAquarium.com, spoke on the topic of Photographing your Aquarium at GWAPA\u2019s April 27th meeting in Bowie, Maryland.<\/p>\n
One of the most important pieces of advice he gave was to add extra light when photographing an aquarium. Use any extra light to can to allow for faster shutter speeds (freezes fish, provides less blurring) and smaller apertures (allows for larger depth of field). Try to use a mixture of bulb colors. We use a rather narrow range in our tanks, and as we add different colors, it becomes more natural in a photo.<\/p>\n
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To demonstrate how he adds light, Jason showed a photo of the tank that won 2nd place in the 2008 AGA contest. He admitted that \u201cit looks kind of dangerous\u201d with over 500watts of lights trained on the tank, some on microphone stands.<\/p>\n
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To set up for a shoot, clean the aquarium and glass. This may seem obvious, but some people skip this step, and water spots will ruin an otherwise excellent shot. Remove all hardware, and make sure to clean behind where the filter was. Jason keeps a bucket next to the tank and places all hardware in there until he is finished with the shoot.<\/p>\n
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Use a timer or remote trigger, as pushing a button moves the camera.<\/p>\n
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Use a tripod, or set the camera on a table with books piled up to achieve the correct height. No matter how careful you are, your hands are going to shake and you will not get the best shot.<\/p>\n
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Use a wide angle and zoom out, which will let you get as close to the aquarium as possible. He showed us some pictures so we could see the difference between shots that were taken zoomed out vs. zoomed in, and there was much more appearance of depth in the zoomed out shots. \u201cWe are trying to create an appearance, something that doesn\u2019t necessarily exist,\u201d he explained. Jason says that he finds trying to create depth to be the most challenging thing in aquascaping.<\/p>\n
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Turn off all lights in the room before shooting. It doesn\u2019t make sense to spend so much time creating an aquascape and painstakingly setting up the shoot only to see a reflection of \u201cyour big dumb face\u201d in the tank. Also turn off the flash –it\u2019s not helping, and will only create glare.<\/p>\n
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Tapping lightly on the glass right before you shoot will make the fish school.<\/p>\n
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It is not just the amount of lighting that is important, but the color of the lighting and the \u201cwhite balance.\u201d\u00a0 Different lighting creates different hues and color casts. White balance adjusts red, green, and blue to create a truer white. The human eye does this automatically (your brain tells you what it\u2019s supposed to be).<\/p>\n
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Cameras have automatic white balance adjustments to handle different lighting situations, but some \u201cguess\u201d better than others. (That\u2019s what those settings on your camera for things like \u201ccloudy\u201d or \u201cincandescent\u201d are for.)<\/p>\n
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Incandescent light has a yellower light, fluorescent light has a greener light, and daylight a bluer light. Jason showed pictures of different white balance settings: auto white balance, daylight, tungsten or incandescent, and fluorescent.<\/p>\n
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He moved on to explain shutter speed and aperture. The shutter speed controls how long light hits or (exposes) the camera\u2019s film or sensor. Use a faster shutter speed to freeze fish and have less blurring. Aperture works like the pupil of the eye, and controls how much light is passed when the shutter is open. This controls the depth of field.<\/p>\n
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Your camera\u2019s computer determines the shutter speed and aperture. It takes a \u201cguess\u201d as to what you are shooting, and some will \u201cguess\u201d better than others. Most cameras do not have an aquarium setting.<\/p>\n
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Exposure compensation is used after the camera makes its guess. It is usually adjusted in 1\/3 or 1\/2 stops in plus or minus fashion. To demonstrate exposure compensation, he showed us photos with best guess, plus 2, minus 2, minus 3.<\/p>\n
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Jason offered some final tips in \u201cputting it all together\u201d : using a white background (move the tank away from the wall, and use poster board to create a smooth white surface), using strobes or remote flashes (allows for more control), and doing postproduction editing with Photoshop.<\/p>\n
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Photoshop can be used to make small adjustments to a photo. The \u201cburn tool\u201d can darken areas that weren\u2019t dark enough. Hue saturation can be used to get more green (really the same thing as doing white balance). The \u201cstamp tool\u201d can be used to duplicate one area, and put it over a snail to eliminate the snail from the picture. The same thing can be done to make a rock look more moss covered, or \u201cget rid of snail poopy.\u201d<\/p>\n
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There is some argument about whether using Photoshop like this is somehow \u201ccheating.\u201d Jason did not go into that in depth, but did say that there\u2019s nothing wrong with removing a blemish or leaves, but once you start adding plants or moving rocks, that\u2019s something else entirely. He has judged AGA contests in which it appeared that some entrants had done just that.<\/p>\n
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Another use for Photoshop is to get an idea of how a tank will look if things were rearranged, before re-scaping.<\/p>\n
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After his presentation, Jason answered questions, and gave some hands on assistance in photographing a tank Jen Williams brought to the meeting.<\/p>\n
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Aquarium Photography<\/p>\n
jason baliban<\/p>\n