Do you find it more difficult to take photos of fish than land animals? I find that my photos are always blurred when I attempt it, especially smaller fish, so just wondered if others had similar problems.
@amur leopard First of all thank you for your likes and comments, they are definitely appreciated.
With regards to your questions: taking decent pictures of fish (and to lesser extent reptiles and amphibians as well) is definitely something I find more challenging compared to mammals and birds. Lighting and exposure, animal movement and aquarium windows all provide for substantial and particular challenges in photographing fish.
What has helped me a lot is that my current camera is a lot more light-sensitive than my previous one, which has given me more opportunities to gain experience in photographing fish.
I also get my fair share of blurry and badly focused fish pictures that I have to discard, and the ones that I end up posting are only a fraction of the actual number of pictures I took on a given day. And I will openly state that I would consider at least some of the fish pictures I post to not be that good in terms of photographic quality and photography skills, but of acceptable quality to post with the goal of documenting zoos and species.
@KevinB Thanks, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one!
Interesting about the light sensitive lens. Does the light sensitivity help with the focusing, or the exposure [perhaps?
At times I also have awful focusing moments, so I was wondering if it was that. For example yesterday a cheetah was walking towards me and every single one of my pics was completely off.
@amur leopard
I think the light sensitivity has more to do with the chips in the camera body that record the image.
The light sensitivity does help me somewhat with focusing as I use live view on the camera screen rather than the viewfinder to make my photos. It also helps with the exposure and decisions on camera settings, as it allows me to shorten shutter speeds, even in lower light settings, which may help cut down on blurring due to movement, as well as to avoid shutter speeds that I would need support for (on a good day I can maybe do a 1/30 or even a 1/25 shutter speed without using any sort of support, but on a less good day I don't go below 1/60).
I also still get plenty of bad photos, and I also sometimes make stupid "beginner" mistakes despite having done digital photography for nearly 15 years now. And I also sometimes make a series of an animal or group of animals that just ends up mostly or entirely failing and having to be discarded.
@amur leopard Yes fish are difficult. I agree with everything @KevinB has said, lighting is very much a major component in photographing fish. There are a couple of reasons for this in my experience. The glass is the first problem, depending on the angle glass can show reflections, and makes using a flash impossible. The hallways in aquariums are usually darkened to avoid reflections, and so using a flash will just get you a bright flash picture. Also water filters light differently than air, and provides additional difficulty in getting a good shot. The inability to use flash makes it impossible to "freeze" small active fish, and thus it is very easy to get a blurry photo. Once you start getting the hang of it photographing through water and glass is easier, but still probably the second most difficult photography situation in zoos, following nocturnal houses.
