Took him by surprise!

[CGGorman]

I've been trying to get a picture of my Pleco since I joined here. He's REALLY shy. Spends all the daylight hours hiding in his cave. This morning I got up for work and saw him laying out in the LED "moonlight". I tip-toed past the tank thinking for sure he would bolt like he always does, he DIDN'T! The lights in the house were off, so I don't think he saw me. I grabbed the camera and literally crawled across the room to the tank. I got up slowly onto my knees and saw that he was still there, so I covered the red "focus-assist" light on the camera so it wouldn't startle him and snapped a picture with the flash on. I thought sure he would bolt after the flash, but he STILL didn't...so I took another pic. Since he still didn't move, I got bold and stood up slowly. Managed to get off a few more shots before he got tired of the psycho paparazzi snapping his picture.

Normally he keeps his dorsal fin upright when he isn't hiding, but not this morning...

 

[bosk1]

Nice work!

 

[rippin17]

how large is ur pleco? great pics by the way

 

[CGGorman]

Thanks!

I scaled that full tank shot to get a rough measurement... It's a std. 55, so it's 48" long. The white bars divide the tank equally into 4. I then divided each bar into 12, so each hash mark represents 1". Taking into account foreshortening and the angle that the Pleco is resting in the tank (about 30 degrees), I'd estimate him at about 13" tip to tip. He's around 8 or 9 years old...maybe 10. Can't remember.

 

[Codefox]

Geeze, he makes your tank look small. Nice shots of him though

 

[sherry]

He's a handsome boy!!! nice shots.

 

[tropicfishman]

beautiful pleco, even though they freak me out with there lil beady eyes...just waiting to jump out of the tank agian..anyways nice shot, any tips on how t oget a digital camera to take these kinda shots, i've tried before and it really stinks, should i turn the flash off?

 

[CGGorman]

In this case, with all the lights off, I used the flash. To stop the glare, you have to hold the camera at an angle to what you are photographing. Imagine the light as a billiards ball that you are banking off the glass. You want the light to bounce off to the side or above/below. If you choose to shoot w/o a flash, you're shutter speeds will slow down and contribute to blurry shots. In that case, I use a tripod and the timer setting to minimize shake.

Those pictures were taken with a point-n-shoot digital Canon. i didn't do anything to adjust settings, just snapped a pic. With a more flexible camera, you can get all kinds of effects and additional flexibility.

Take lots of pics and make lots of mistakes. If you don't like the way it turns out, delete it and try something different.

 

[Zagz]

Nice looking pleco! He is very healthy looking! Not to mention big! LOL

 

[Friendly]

Awesome pleco! I have a pleco that looks exactly like that but not as a big (only 3"). I also like your background ( I have the same picture )

 

[bosk1]

You ought to think about submitting that first one for the monthly photo contest.