The National Aquarium of Baltimore!

Today, I learned that photographing life under the sea is difficult, even if you aren’t technically under the sea.

Before I arrived to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, I knew photographing any sort of life in the aquarium would be a challenge. Why? Writing with light is difficult when the light is limited and the fishes move fast. But I was there, I had my camera, and I was determined to make some photographs happen. Here are some tips and techniques that I learned along the way to photograph the aquarium with my Nikon D7000.

DSLR Techniques I considered before I went to the Aquarium:

• Shoot in manual exposure mode (M) 
  • You’ll have to play with the settings but I [generally] used the slowest handheld shutter speed I could to avoid camera shake (1/60 up to 1/125), pushed the ISO (800-1600), and tried to stop down the aperture between f/3.3- f/5.6. Often times, this wasn’t possible without really pushing the ISO. With the D7000,  if I pushed the ISO beyond 1600, the details degrade. Therefore, I photographed a lot of fishes around f/2.8.
• Don’t use pop up flash
• Try spot metering
• Manually focus! 
  • If you try AF in low light conditions, the camera may hunt to find the focus… endlessly.
• Use a Lens Hood and press it up against the glass to limit reflections from the tanks’ surface (if you can get close to the tank)
• Use a circular polarizer {filter} to limit reflections. But keep in mind this will lessen the intensity of light entering your camera. You’ll have to compensate. 

Okay, now some fun things I realized while I was there…

Get close to the glass and play with Depth of Field

If you can’t get close, experiment with DOF and your point of focus.

You can draw the focus into a subject by opening up your aperture and creating a point of view that has foreground subject matter that will fall out of focus (leaves on a tree, for example that are super close to you but far from the subject you will focus on). A longer lens will help with this, too!

Try Panning.

Some people are incredible at the panning technique. I am not one of those people; I try my best, regardless. To do this, chose a slow shutter speed (I tried 1/8- 1/15), press the shutter release, and as the shutter is open, follow the motion of your subject with your camera.  I didn’t necessarily get a successful “panning” shot, but it’s fun to play around with.

 

Experiment with angles and point of view.

Pay attention to light being reflected off of the aquarium glass and refracted in the water.  If you want to avoid the reflections [on the surface of the tank] from the lights behind you, I found out you have a few options…

1. Get as close the glass as possible and place your lens hood on the surface of the glass.
2. Use a Circular Polarizer [filter] to reduce reflections that  as you Move around to limit and/or take advantage of either effect.
3. Move your body to minimize (or maximize) reflections.

 

Watch the fish but watch the people watching the fish, too!

and try your best not to look like a creep.

A few more…

And now for the, erm, less successful shots.

 

 

 

Okay, that is all. I don’t have photographs of the dolphins because I hate to see them in aquariums.  Some of the fishes here made me wonder what Sebastian would think about all of this. 

 

More Baltimore shots to follow.