mathas

As the owner of a new aquarium, the first I've kept since the advent of digital cameras, I've recently begun trying to teach myself how to photograph fish. I really don't have a lot of photography experience as it is, mostly just taking snapshots of friends at various events, but I've found that trying to capture a 2" fish while it's moving is a whole different experience!

Camera: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Lens: whatever comes with the camera
Shooting Mode: Manual
Aperture: F3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/20 second

I intend to add pictures to this thread as the tank grows/changes, sort of an ongoing "critique my pictures and help me become a better photographer while I show off my fish" thread.

Here is the tank prior to adding any fish:


The plants are all live (my first attempt at a planted tank!), and include Anubias barteri, Cryptocoryne wendtii bronze, Echindorus blaheri, and Echindorus cordifolius. I'm still thinking about adding at least one Anubias nana, but I'm going to wait for the smaller plants to grow out and give me a better idea of how they will fill in before I make any drastic aquascaping changes.

The first fish I added were three red-tailed rasboras (or brilliant rasboras, as the LFS around here call them). I'll be heading back this afternoon to pick up a few more, and hopefully increase the school size to around 8-10. After what seemed like hundreds of pictures, but was probably only 50-75, I finally got two where you can tell that they are fish and not just blurs!




I then added my cleanup crew: two albino bristlenose plecostomus, and seven corydoras (I think Corydoras trilineatus).



I'm by no means an expert on sexing plecos, especially ones as young as these, but if the beginnings of bristles are any indication, I have one male and one female. I think the one in the picture above is the male, because the other one is the same size but does not have the little barbels around the front of the head.

The corys were still a bit stressed last night from the long drive home from the LFS and the new tank, but hopefully tonight they'll be a little less camera-shy, and be willing to pose for some photos!

sirdarksol

Beautiful tank.

Allie

Love it!

David C

Your photos are beautiful, and that is a gorgeous tank setup.

COBettaCouple

Beautiful pics of your great tank and fish!

Slug

Nice tank. I've tried my hand at shooting those brilliant rosaboras, tough task i agree. You have some really good shots of them. That shot with the bristlenose would be hard anyway, so much white in the frame it'd be hard not to overexpose something, nice job there.

mathas

I appreciate all the comments so far! I'm also open to constructive criticism, if anyone has some to share.

The corys are still a little skittish when I get near the tank, but I'm very large and they're very small, so I can understand where they're coming from! There is one little guy (or gal) that doesn't seem scared of the giant:



I think I managed to get the substrate slightly more in focus than the fish, which is something I'm trying to figure out how to overcome, but you can still see the beautiful markings that made me choose these ones.

I'd thought when I first got them home that they were Corydoras sterbai, but now that I have this picture of one staying still for a fraction of a second, I think they look much more like Corydoras trilineatus. Either way, these little guys are awesome, and full of energy!

I also have quite a few malaysian trumpet snails that help keep my substrate stirred up and help me explore the macro limits of my lens:

sirdarksol

How many cories do you have? They are bravest when they have fellows to be brave with.

mathas

Seven.

They're definitely out and about, swimming all over the place, they just duck into the plants when I get close enough to the tank to take pictures. I just brought them home yesterday, though, so it's understandable that they're not used to me yet.

Lucy

Nice tank, nice pics, thanks for posting them.

sirdarksol

Yeah, with that number, it's likely just skittishness from the new surroundings. They'll warm up to you.

mathas

I said yesterday that I was going back to the LFS to increase the school size for the red-tail rasboras... they only had four left, so naturally I took them all. My ultimate goal is a school of at least ten, maybe more, but seven is good enough until the next shipment comes in.

Even just with the bag floating in the tank, my original three rasboras were pretty excited to see the new arrivals. They'd swim around the bag for a bit, then dart off and turn around like "why aren't you guys following us?", then they'd come back and do it again.

Here's a couple of shots I was able to get this morning of them hanging out together:





I also got a better picture of the face of what I think might be my female bristlenose... despite being slightly larger than the other one I posted a picture of earlier, the barbels are far less pronounced on this one.



I'll be heading back to the LFS on Friday to place an order for five or six bolivian rams, and either purchase a few more rasboras or have them order a few more for me.

mathas

Dinner is served!

peacemaker92

Your tank is beautiful! Never seen such a tank that would take my breath away even in a picture! Your photos are splendid too, they're so clear and non-blur! Awesome man! Well done!

Btw, I don't think anyone would want to criticize you. Your pictures and your tank is just awesome!

mathas

While I appreciate the kind words, there's always room for improvement

For example, I still have issues controlling what my camera focuses on, as evidenced in this picture:



The corys are a little blurry, while the cave behind them is sharp.

But sometimes I get it right! Here is a group of the corys being far less shy than they were during the last photo session:

mrsmuffin

Great tank and awesome pictures!

morganrules

really beautiful tank

Gamer

Very well done!

hobzz

great tank,,,, gettin much better with photo skills keep up the good job!

mathas

Today's changes:

After noticing that the plants looked a little too uniform with the swords and anubias having the same basic shape to the leaves, I added some wisteria and jungle val for variety. I'm happy with the results for now, but we'll see what happens as everything starts to fill in. I'm also working on obtaining a small quantity of Marsilea minuta to serve as a low-growing, slow-spreading carpet and round things out.



In addition to that, I recently won an AquaBid auction for 6 juvenile platinum angels, which I will keep until a pair forms and then trade the rest in at the LFS. I also added four more red-tail rasboras, bringing my school up to 11, and had my LFS place an order for the final five to get me to my desired school size of 16.

Not much new in the way of pictures, except for the plecos posing for new portraits:

mathas

The AquaBid auction stated that I was bidding on six quarter-sized platinum angels... what I actually received was seven, and they were a bit larger than quarter-sized! I was very pleasantly surprised.



I think they might have gotten a little rowdy with each other during shipping. You can see one of them has a small injury above its mouth, and a couple have very minor fin damage, but that should hopefully heal up nicely with a little bit of time.

I can't wait to see how good they look after they get used to their surroundings and get over the stress of being shipped!

Darlene

Beautiful fish and tank!

livetowin

Yea I love naturally looking tanks thats how my tank is and its never going to change. but very good looking tank and fish.

mathas

After considering it carefully for a few days, I decided that I was unhappy with the layout of my tank, and decided to rearrange things. I particularly didn't like the driftwood arrangement, I felt it looked too... artificial, I guess. Plus I want to go more heavily planted, and I wanted to make room for more plants.

Here's what I've come up with for now:



It looks kind of empty at the moment, but I have plans to correct that. I purchased some Marsilea minuta off a guy at PlantedTank, which should arrive tomorrow or the day after. I'll start it in the front left corner and let it spread from there for a carpet. I also want to add more in the background/middle areas of the tank, but I haven't decided what just yet. I am thinking about adding a cave for the corys/plecos to hide in, but I haven't made up my mind yet... maybe a terra cotta pot with some weeping or pheonix moss. We'll see!

I also made some lighting upgrades. After reading a lot of good reviews on the GE 9325K bulbs, I ordered a pair from lightbulbsdirect.com... if anyone's in the market, they have a great price at the moment, less than $15 per bulb.

When I plugged the bulb in and switched the fixture on, I thought "oh wow, that's pink". The more I look at it, though, the more I love it. The colors seem much more natural to me, both flora and fauna. I don't know how well that will convey through pictures, but all that really matters is that I'm happy with it

Here's a side-by-side, with a Coralife 6700K bulb on the left, and the GE 9325K bulb on the right:


And here it is with the GE bulbs on both sides:


Not only did I make a bulb upgrade, but I have a fixture upgrade on the way as well. I placed an order for an AHSupply 4x55W bright light kit, and two of their 10000K bulbs. I'll use the two GE 9325k bulbs and two of the AHS 10000k bulbs. I've heard good things about that combo, so expect pictures and a mini-review whenever it arrives.

On top of all that, my LFS called today and said my ram order came in, so I'll be picking up the last fish for the tank, five bolivian rams. For those of you who do the math, I know it seems like I'm overstocked, but it will work out just fine.

Expect more pictures tomorrow or the day after, after the rams get over the stress of leaving the LFS!

livetowin

Great work and ideas i need to get some new plants and new lights for my tank

Darlene

It looks great

justin5150

is your camera on auto focus? that my be the reason your focus is in the wrong place. auto focus is when you tap the photo button slightly to make the photo focus. if this is what your doing then you should try manual focus. theres a little switch with "MF" and "AF" written on it. switch to the "MF" option. this means you will have to adjust the lens on the camera to bring the given subject into focus, make sure that the fish is at the very centre of the lens..(If you can!!!) This should make for better pictures!

mathas

Yes, the pictures I've posted so far have all been using auto-focus because I'm not fast enough yet at adjusting the focus manually. If I were taking a picture of something like a flower, it would be much easier, but I need to keep practicing on quick-moving targets like fish

mathas

The marsilea minuta arrived today, and I picked up my rams! As much as I enjoy the other fish I have, these rams are quickly becoming my favorite.

When I reached into the tank to plant the marsilea, they swam up and started picking at the roots to see if they were edible. Just a few hours in the tank, and already trying to eat out of my hand... totally fearless!

They're a bit dull at the moment, but they should color up nicely over the next week or two, as they get over the stress of changing environments.

Here's one of the rams swimming through the new marsilea:


And here's another one of the rams posing:


Unfortunately I did lose two corys over the past week or so. My water parameters are fine, and they didn't show any external signs of disease/parasites, so I'm not sure what happened.

Darlene

Your bolivians are beautiful. They remind me of our Apollo when we got him, he has since colored up nicely, and his fins are starting to show more red on the tips of them. He is one of my favorite fish in there. Good luck with them.