Everytime I try they don't turn out well. What am I doing wrong? What kind of set up do you use? Flash? No flash? Night time setting?

use flash, but be at an angle to the glass, so the flash reflects elsewere, not into the lens. post your results please!

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the grass was greener on the other side, but when your a fish.... not good.....
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1. HERPES - Me and my fren ordered pizza. I got mine piece and she got herpes.
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(this is just a joke, no offense intended! enjoy)

When I take tank pics or even pics of fish, I make sure all the lights in the room are off with only the tank light on. If the tank light is bright enough you don't need the flash most of the time. When you do use the flash try putting a small bit of toilet paper over the flash to diffuse the flash back. If the room gets a lot of sunlight try closing the curtains or blinds as well as it can cause a lot of reflection on the glass to ruin the pic.

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There are a couple of tricks that you can use to get better pictures.

Susan is totally correct that a dark room behind you will help a good deal. You'll want the most contrast that you can get between the bright inside of the tank and the dark outside. Try to keep the fish bright and yourself dark.

Adding a temporary light source in the tank will also help. I use a spring arm desk lamp over what ever it is that I'm shooting.

If you're really in a bind, you can try taking a black sheet and cutting a lens sized hole in the middle. Hang up the sheet in front of the tank and stick the lens through to take the pictures.

If you want to spend a little money on it, get a circular polarizing filter for your camera. It works just like polarized sunglasses by removing a lot of the glare/reflections from glass so you can see through it better, and it'll make the fish look more vibrant.

Good luck, I think you'll find it's loads of fun once you get started.

If you can use a detachable flash and have it over the tank. I don't so I turn my flash off along with other lights.

Turn off aeration so plants aren't moving, unless you want that ADA "surface ripple" picture, then use a hairdryer....lol.

Try for fast shutter speed, but adjust iso to allow for the most light possible (200).

For close ups of fish, I switch to macro setting and increase shutter even more. Since you are closer to the light, you can back down iso to 100 or less, for faster shutter.

CLEAN YOUR GLASS!!! easy to do, yet 90% of us don't before taking a picture of the tank!

Photoshop can be used to adjust levels a bit if the picture is still too dark, but you will add grain if you increase levels/sharpness too much.

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--->Pictures of my 75g Amazon tank<----

You need to enable the macro settings usually the flower looking icon.

turn the flash off, all lights off and only tank light on in the room.


angle shots on tanks are ugly IMO, they throw everything off, there is a 6" difference when looking into water from where things really are.

I turn off the lights in the room, and use my telephoto lens, so as to not spook the fish. I bump up the ISO setting so my shutter speed is fast enough to not induce motion blur. Keep in mind that as you bump the ISO, the photo gets more grainy with most cameras, especially compacts. It also helps if you have a lens that can focus when closer to the subject, so you can fill the frame with more of the fish.

Here's a shot of one of our Red Zebras, using the above tips:



This was taken using a Nikon D200 with a Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR lens.

Beautiful shot. It's nice how the background is dark enough to provide an intense contrast on the fish's colors

Thanks! What causes that is exposing for the fish itself since it's brightly colored, which requires a faster shutter speed, and makes the background darker than it really is.