The Puffer Forum

How do you guys do to take the pics you do of your puffers??? All those close-ups and stuff... All I can get is blurriness thru the glass, water reflection or flash reflection ( or total darkness in other spots)...

Do you use submersible cameras or just normal ones with some sort of filter or am I just a bad photograph???

I just attended a workshop where Mo Devlin (AquaMojo) talked about his techniques for taking good shots. He is well known for getting great fish pictures.

The main thing he does is get more light - 1-5 external flashes (not the dinky one that comes on your camera) shining into the tank, up from the bottom, and/or from the sides. He also uses a nice camera (DSLR), although I suspect a Micro 4/3 would work well too. He takes a lot of pics, using manual settings, and paints the photo tank on the back with a 'bumpy' frosted glass type paint, then a black paint, so light reflects into the tank but is diffused instead of mirrored back.

I usually take my pics with my Galaxy S3 phone camera, because I have it handy, but could get much better shots by trying some of the above, I think.

Alright I'll look into that... I'd like to enter the POTM contest but can't get decent pictures of it...

I just take a load of photos on my iphone, the best ones get kept, the duff blurt ones get binned. I only get reasonable shots with persistence

I use a Canon 500D DSLR with good quality glass. A fast shutter speed with a macro prime lens is most useful.

screenshots of video clips made with high resolution smartphone cameras, flash off

I take my pictures in the evening when its dark outside. Then turn off all the lights in the house and use a fast shutterspeed. Then play around with the diafragma and ISO a bit untill the fast shutter gives clear and good lighted photo's so you dont need to use the flash

My girlfriend has a really nice professional HD camera. The things amazing! Also has a big external flash.

With all these great cameras here, we should have no problems getting enough pics for POTM!

LOL! Some of us have not taken a photo in decades. While my wife has a non-trivial collection of cameras, she hates trying to take fish tank photos, so I only very rarely ask it of her. There are plenty of folks for whom even cell phones are quite a challenge and for emergency use only. Modern key pads are alien devices which I cannot see. Sorry about that. I usually call in a professional if I want photos...Submitting those few pctures would not be fair competition and a tad expensive to boot.