Tip of the Day – 7/15/2014

Want to take good aquarium photos? Well, here are a few tips to get good, crisp images. First of all, shoot in manual mode. This will give you the widest range of options for individual settings. Images taken while in auto mode might turn out grainy, especially if the aquarium is kind of dark. Second, open up you aperture as wide as possible, denoted by a small f-stop. This will allow the most light to enter your lens. Despite aquariums being very bright, the resulting images usually turn out dark. The last setting to tinker with will be the shutter speed. A quick shutter is ideal for fast moving objects, like fish, but it will make the image darker the faster the shutter speed. So, you’ll have to find a balance between motion blur and lighting. After making these three adjustments, you can start snapping away. If the images are too dark, adjust the ISO settings to be higher. The auto mode for the ISO may be used, but the camera usually picks a higher ISO setting than we’re happy with, which results in grainy images. If the images are still too dark, you could use a flash, which is actually better for taking fish photos, or you can adjust the photos in Photoshop or any one of the numerous free programs that are available.