Rainbow Dace

[cguarino30]

I'm still trying to get the hang of this DSLR thing, but I feel like I'm making progress. The pictures still seem a little dull to me, if anyone has any idea on crisping them up a bit, I would greatly appreciate it.

Shot with a D3000 and 2 diffused overheads
1/125
f7.1
ISO 400

Any and all comments are appreciated. Don't spare my feelings, I'm here to learn.

 

[loach43]

I'm having a difficult time trying to find things wrong with your photo actually. It's quite good imo, and I'm not just saying that to be nice! The finnage on your fish could use more light but that's about the only thing that stands out for me.

 

[stan chung]

Hi there, may I ask what lens are you using and did you shoot RAW or jpeg?

 

[cguarino30]

thanks for the responses. How do I get more lighting on the fins? Another flash maybe? As for shooting, I used a kit lens and jpeg

 

[devder1]

i would shoot on something more like
1/200th
f9
iso200
but thats just personal preference, great shots!

 

[stan chung]

I'm not familiar with the D3000 but I think you can tweak the sharpness in camera for jpgs. For RAW you can do it in post.[PS,LR etc]
Nikon favours very neutral [in camera] sharpening settings.
You can still apply sharpening later with jpg's.

 

[mewickham]

I believe you have misidentified this fish. It looks like a red shiner (Cyprinella lutrensis) to me. Good photo, though!

 

[the solitaire]

I know this thread was posted quite a while ago.
If you´re still looking for advise, it´s not the amount of flashes you use.

2 should definately do. I often only use 1.
One thing is intensity of the flash, the other is flash zoom. @50mm setting the light is bundled narrower giving slightly better shadows. @14mm the light is diffracted and more even, ut does not penetrate as far into the fishtank. This becomes noticable pretty quickly over 30cm of water depth.

Your values look off. F7.1, ISO 400.
That does not compute for me. Set ISO to 100 or 200.
Use F8,0 or higher
Try to get 1/250 or faster shutter times.
Clean up the background.

Once you get plenty of light in the right spot, have ISO as low as possible and have a clean background there is only 1 issue left.
The image looks a bit grainy. Possily because you severely cropped the shot.

A macro lens will help you use more of your image sensor. That helps reduce the grain.

 

[Razzo]

i would shoot on something more like
1/200th
f9
iso200
but thats just personal preference, great shots!

I too am new to DSLR photography. This is a great forum! I really appreciate that the more experienced photographers take time to share with less experienced folks like myself. Just reading this one thread has helped me. Thanks to the OP for being willing to post this too. I will shoot some photos this week and post one for help.

Thank you,
Russ

 

[Marendithas59]

Try putting a bit more light above the tank to shine down on the fish, this should help to make the picture look a bit brighter and help accentuate the fish.