fishy flash..

[clickclick]

Hi all, Have seen some fantastic fish pics with a separate flash. It sounds like a remote one or something they set up above the tank? Im a noob and researching atm, so just wondering if anyone one of these for fish pics or similar? What theyre called and how hard to set up?

[MattC]

The main goal is to try and reduce or eliminate reflection from the glass - this can be done certainly by using an off camera flash, or usually by angling the camera to avoid the reflection - although depending on the thickness of the glass, this can introduce distortion. Also getting the front of the lens as close to the glass as possible (this is where rubber lens hoods are perfect), helps too.

I have read where people have used banks of 240V slave flashes above the tank etc, but if you have sufficient overhead lighting to begin with, this is usually not necessary.

[Rattus79]

the other trick to use is a polarising filter. It helps to reduce glare and also brings out the irradecent colous of some of the bright tropical fish. As a fish owner i reccomend taking your time on this. After a while they will start to ignore you and do their thing. That's when you'll get your best shots. Feed time is good too for some action shots. Sedtup your camera and ocf prefocus feed and shoot. Sometimes shooting from a low angle looking up can give some weird and cool reflections off the surface and can look like it was taken in the tank itself.

Ps make certain the glass is perfectly clean. Scratches can fool the autofocus very easily and they show up like dogs balls.