Just between us girls

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Razzo

Razzo

Piranha
MFK Member
May 18, 2008
365
114
76
Northern Indiana
Shot a new series on Mikula Group Nyatzi (which is a 125-gallon tank) before re-aquascaping it and adding a few females from the 240-gallon tank. Of course, I tried to capture Nyatzi (the tank Alpha male) with full-flared-fins but he wouldn't cooperate. The females were all posing for me; so, I took what they gave me and ran with an all girl review.

I was very pleased with many of the images from this three day session. There will be more to follow, in this thread, at a later date. For anyone who may not be familiar with them, Mikula Group Nyatzi is a group of wild caught Cyphotilapia gibberosa (Zaire Blue Mikula).

Here's a few images for starters...

24899275029_1fc1ae7e78_o.jpg


25148682452_8a01e677ef_o.jpg


24640157013_5d88e6386a_o.jpg


24636317194_3103bc749f_o.jpg


25148682642_826a7d6ac2_o.jpg


Cheers,
Russ
 
  • Like
Reactions: xraycer, mrrobxc, Frank Castle and 5 others
Would you care to explain the work involved for these pics? You mentioned a 3 day session, so I'm imagining something quite intensive. I'm mostly curious about the amount of time spent taking pics, and how many turn out satisfactory. I can only imagine the number of photos taken. Exceptional fish, they are surprisingly photogenic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Razzo
Thank you :-)

The number of attempts to "keepers" was better than normal with this series. The 21st was the big day, I must have taken close to 200 shots (over two to three hours with several breaks). It seemed to take forever because I kept waiting for my alpha to pose which didn't really happen. Out of that 200 shots, maybe 25 of them are deleted immediately. The next step is to download images to the iMac and then I do a quick review in Adobe bridge and write down the keepers. Those go into a sub folder which I name "Post" to work on at a later date. There were approx. 30 keepers from that day. Out of that 30, maybe ten are chosen for POST work converting them from RAW using Adobe Camera RAW and then tweaking them in Photoshop CS6 for the web.

This group has traditionally been more of a shy group and they have become increasingly less shy lately which planted the idea to do a session. I fed the tank really well for ten days and then they were fasted for two to three days before and for the shoot. Camera gear was placed in position about a week prior so these smart fish were comfortable with these extra contraptions. That gear was the camera on a tripod and a remotely triggered flash mounted in a home made diffuser on top of the tank. By the first day of the faste, I did a deep cleaning and large water change on the tank.

The day before the faste, I did some practice shots as they were all coming to the glass and posing. The shots were all up high in the water column (much higher than the pics in this series) and I was pleasantly surpised that my settings were spot on from the get go and the images were turning out ok.

That's a sneak peak behind the blind :-)

Thanks,
Russ
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Woefulrelic
I have a handful more choice images of the girls that I would like to add to this thread (I will at a later time). I did want to sneak in an image of the alpha male in this tank, Nyatzi. He didn't give me that trophy full fin picture this session; however, this image caught my attention and preempted my work flow on more of the female images.

What is appealing, to my eye, in this image is the increasing shadows, from left to right as Nyatzi slowly glides into darkness . I don't often title my images but I did for this one... Into the Abyss.

24656240063_7e0e40f940_o.jpg
 
You took some great photos of some beautiful fish.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Razzo
I had written a response to your post but it didn't go through. Would you estimate the man hours that go into a series like this would be somewhere in the 12 hour region, or likely more? That's a serious commitment, and I think you are rewarded for it. I'd probably be interested in desktop backgrounds if you ever end up shooting 16:9.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Razzo
wonderful pics of wonderful fish, :)
 
Woefulrelic said:
I had written a response to your post but it didn't go through. Would you estimate the man hours that go into a series like this would be somewhere in the 12 hour region, or likely more? That's a serious commitment, and I think you are rewarded for it. I'd probably be interested in desktop backgrounds if you ever end up shooting 16:9.
Click to expand...

Possibly? Maybe four hours of shooting, one hour of review and ranking, and one hour of post (per image) for shots I really like and maybe 15 minutes on general images. I want the images in this thread to be high quality so I am spending more time on them than normal. The image has to be a good one for me to be willing to spend that kind of time on it. Probably the biggest task is spot removal in Adobe Camera RAW. The overhead flash makes anything floating in the water look like snow. I can't seem to completely eliminate the snow: faste the tank, water changes, turn filter off. I've managed to reduce it quite a bit but not total elimination. So, I use the spot healing tool in AC RAW... turn up the exposure, highlights, reduce shadows, zoom in and hit those spots one by one. It's the only part of the process that I don't enjoy. Also why I don't do post on too many images too :-)

So, other than spot removal, I really enjoy all aspects. It combines two hobbies and allows me to get some creative artistic juices flowing :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom