How to take a good digital photo

[bandit_8501]

I have a Canon Powershot sx100 is with a 10x zoom
and image stablizer

[Fishypop22]

any good olympus cameras???

[wims590]

best way to get fishy photos is to have a tripod...bellows possibly...no flash...low F number and a lot of patience! also i read once that when taking photos of fish you always take a photo of the left hand side of them, duno why though!
good luck!
i have a nikon D50 , its alright with the photos, puddle about with them on photoshop and they're grand!

[flanque]

The first thing you need to do is decide what you want to take a photograph of. You must know the limits of your camera and how to achieve a good shot for your chosen subject.

Generally speaking, aquariums require a wide open apature around the 3.5-4.0 range. You'll need to experiment with the shutter speed but somewhere in the 1/200 range is a good place to start for the faster fish.

Having said that, you'll get either an under or over exposed image unless you meter up right. A decent camera will have a light metre .. it looks like

-2 ... 0 ... +2

You are trying to aim to get the reading at the 0 for a properly exposed image. Find something neutral in the tank that's not too dark and not too light. Something grey in the tank to meter off. Some cameras will have different types of metering but if you can keep the camera still (i.e. tripod) and on something neutral then spot metering will probably work, but evaluated or weighted metering may be required, still, using something neutral in light.

If you can get a remote control to fire the shutter then that'll help remove shake. If you an swap lenses then there's the option of using a image stablising lense, but it's not going to be a silver bullet.

You can use the flash to increase the lighting and thus the shutter speed, but you'll get a white and artificial shot without the natural colours of the tank that you see when you look at it.

It's difficult requiring patience and of coarse many many shots to find the better ones. Try different angles and positions, find where you fish hide into and then prepare your camera and then wait for the opportunity to arise.

The lower the apature the more precise you need to be with focusing. You may even wish to manually focus your lense to prevent the 'intelligence' in the camera from scanning in and out to try and find what to focus on.

I have a Canon EOS 400D but I haven't placed any images online. I should.

I hope that helps.

[flanque]

Attached is an example. It's not perfectly sharp but it's reasonable.

[Steveo 2006]

You have to love the transistion from a 3.3mp Coolpix 995 to a EOS 400 10.3mp camera. From 03 to now is like the evolution of DLSR. None fish related, but very cool thread

[flanque]

Yeah I agree, but I have to admit, unless you know how to use it, sometimes the pocket cameras with their auto can produce better pictures.

The camera can only do so much.

[Isurus]

I use a Nikon D300, an I currently own a 50mm f/1.4, a 80-200 AF-D f/2.8, a couple kit zooms, and a 105mm f/2.8mm VR micro; Good for photographing the hair on a fly's rear.

If i was shooting a non moving subject, even in low lighting, I would simply use a tripod, a remote release, and mirror up mode (only available with single lens reflex cameras), and stop down to at least f/11 to attain the desired DOF. If I was shooting a single subject in low ligthing, I would need to use the widest aperture available (adds effect with the narrow depth of field + allows for a faster shutter speed). Of course, when hand holding a camera, you must use a shutter speed equivalent to the focal length of your lens (aka: 200mm = at least 1/200 of a second) or sometimes faster with a moving subject.

Even wide open, sometimes you may need to bump up the ISO to attain a good shutter speed in low lighting situations (such as a fish tank). With my D300, I can get away with using 1600 ISO without noticable noise even on an 8x10 print.

I have never owned a P&S camera that comes anywhere near my dSLR. Even the cheapest dSLRs, like my girlfriend's D60, blow point and shoot cameras out of the water. Of course, when I can't hoof around kilos upon kilos of optics, I use my P&S, the P90. It gets points for portability, but I am used to a dSLR and as such, I feel crippled when I don't have my D300.

wow.. my fingers hurt after my first post.