After reading Sea Legs, a friend asked me if I could give them a few pointers on how to get good photos while at the aquarium. (Great question!) So, I decided to share six tips that make it a cinch. It just takes a little toying around with your DSLR and, along with the tips below, you’ll be on your way to great aquarium shots in no time! If you’re not familiar with changing your camera settings, now is the perfect time to dig out that dreaded manual and learn a couple of basics. It’s not nearly as scary as you might think.
Flash. First things first–put away that flash! Yep, turn that baby off. All of that extra and unnecessary light will just reflect off the tank and leave a nasty glare smothering those pretty fishies.
ISO. Typically, aquariums are dimly lit to make the tanks really pop. That doesn’t mean you need to crank up your ISO and take on all that grain! The light INSIDE the tanks is very bright to simulate a daylight effect, so use that to your advantage. The photo in this post, as well as my previous post, were taken at ISO 400.
Use Your Reflectors! Say wha?! All that light streaming from the tanks and reflecting off the sand is the perfect way to naturally light your subjects. Make sure they are facing the tank at a slight angle towards you, catching the beautiful light on their faces AND giving you a great angle to take the photo.
Aperture. For a situation like this, I like to open up to around f2.2, but anywhere between f2.2 and f3.5 should let enough light in for a pretty sharp photo. If your lens doesn’t open up that wide, simply bump your ISO up to 500 or 600.
Light Meter. Here is where the trick is! After setting your aperture, put the center focus point on the aquarium wall that runs closest to your subject. Push your shutter button halfway down for your light meter to read, and adjust your shutter speed so that your exposure is balanced in the middle. Then, increase your exposure up by one stop. What your doing here is reading the light from the aquarium, then overexposing that slightly. This creates a nice balance of added light for your subject, while keeping most of the depth and colors of the aquarium intact. If you metered the light off your subjects face, your photo would be so bright that the aquarium would be blown out and overexposed.
Recompose & Shoot! Now that you’ve set your light meter, put your center focus point on your subject, and press your shutter button halfway down, locking focus on your subject (ignore what your light meter reads because you’ve already set that). Recompose the frame, and press down completely to snap your photo.
Viola! Now you have a great shot straight out of the camera. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below, and I’ll do my best to get you an answer. Don’t forget to Pin the aquarium photo to link you straight back to this tutorial for future reference. Hope this was helpful!
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Fantastic! Thank you!