After several different perspectives I finally decided on the one that presented the greatest challenge to my photography skills. The runner ups where: a building as seen from an engineer’s eye (would make a better slide show), a bird’s eye view (required me to stand dangerously close to the edges of tall buildings) and last but not least what it is like to be a pizza (the lack of water cooled camera equipment made this impractical).
My winning perspective was living in a glass box. The subjects of choice were my two Dwarf Fire Gouramies (Colisa lalia). In the past I have tried to get good pictures of fish with varying levels of success, so I thought this would be a great perspective to tackle.
I tried two different camera setups in my experimentation and was able to capture decent pictures with both. I originally started out with a Fuji A900 to see if I could get a good picture using my digital camera. I wasn’t satisfied with the amount of glare/reflection on the glass so I tried holding a circular polarizing filter in front to the lens to cut the glare, which worked but still wasn’t able to get a clear picture. The slight delay when the camera would focus was typically just long enough to miss the split second when the fish were not in motion.
Frustrated with all the automatic picture modes and no manual overrides I took out the old SLR camera. I can't wait to get a digital SLR camera.
I was able to get a decent picture with a Canon T90 with a 35-70mm Macro lens. The picture was taken in automatic exposure mode with center dot metering from a tripod with no flash. Film speed that I used was ISO 800, because is was in the camera from a previous night photography outing. The room conditions had minimal lighting and combined with taking the picture at an angle with the glass the reflection of the glass was not visible. The shuttle speed was slow enough to cause the CO2 bubbles to streak (cloudiness to the background) and most of the fast moving fish to be blurred. Finally the one Gourami was still just long enough to get captured on film.
Still not the "perfect" picture that one would see in a fish publication.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
From a Cat's Eye
category ~ A New Perspective
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9 comments or thoughts:
Fabulose!!! You make me laugh!!
Wow! That's all I have to say. I am truly seeing a different side of you, but I have to say, I'm not too surprised! You do a great job at everything you do!
Not really, I just heed the age old advice of "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried!". *EVIL GRIN*
I agree with you on getting a digital slr. I cant ever get the one we have away from the wife. I have showed her my wish list. Maybe someday she will feel sorry for me, and buy me one.
I wonder what the fish was thinking!
Great photos.
I love your pics!! I agree with the digital delay being a problem!! I too need a faster responding camera!
Fish are so hard to capture... especially from the tank opening, looking down. I get great wavy lines trying to photograph ours.
My chiclids don't sit still long enough to take any kind of picture, maybe I should try my son's goldfish. Love the idea though and great pictures!
I've never thought about what a fish sees, but I guess now I do. We must look huge to them! I shoud've maybe tried to get a picture from the "hermit crab's perspecive".:)
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