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Got a new toy..

Started by Guest_smbass_* , Dec 02 2008 11:19 PM

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26 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 02 December 2008 - 11:19 PM

I just got a new Nikon D90 and here are some picture from my first time using it, these are just in various tanks in my fish room...

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#2 Guest_blakemarkwell_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 12:18 AM

Nice photos! Are you using a default lens or did you buy a macro lens?

Blake

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#3 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 12:49 AM

Darn it Brian...now I want to order more fish...lol

Nice pics.

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#4 Guest_Bob_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 12:54 PM

Nice photos. Hey Brian, what area are the parent stock of your Enneacanthus from?

Darn it Brian...now I want to order more fish...lol

Nice pics.

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#5 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 10:16 PM

The Blackbandeds are a mixed stock from N. and S. Carolina, Bluespotteds are a mix from all over the place (FL, NC, SC, MD, and some multiple generation captive fish as well). My adult Bandeds are actually still all wild caught fish from MA, this is the first time I have had these and I did get a successful hatch and have 15 young that I have kept for myself. The bluespotteds and blackbandeds are a mix of captive and wild caught adults. I actually did decent with all three this year but by far the bluespotteds did best. Hopefully next year will be even better, I have 15 young of all three set aside to grow out as replacement adults.

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#6 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 10:20 PM

Also about the lens... It is not the basic lens that you would get with the camera, ordered the body and lens separate. The lens is a 17-70mm so it has a little wider range than the typical 18-55mm. It is pretty much an all purpose lens but does have a focusing distance of just under 8 inches so it can be used as a macro, but won't get those tiny little Elassoma real well.

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#7 Guest_viridari_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 10:48 PM

Nice pics!

2 things will improve your situation considerably.

1) get a "prime" lens. i.e. "fixed focal length". They are inexpensive but the glass is usually top notch and they pull colors out really well. I don't have any Nikon gear so cannot make an informed recommendation on what lens to get. I'd imagine a 100mm macro lens would be awesome for Elassoma sp.

2) Get a speedlite (flash) and a way to trigger it when it is separated from the camera. Not sure if your camera has a PC port or not. If so you can just run a PC cable from the camera to the flash. In my case I have a set of Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers ($$ but essential for fashion/art shoots so I have them anyway). Another cheap trick is to have 2 flashes. One on the camera with the head pointing straight up and the power level turned all the way down. The other on top of the tank pointing straight down at the fish. Hook up an optical slave ($15-$40 depending on type) to the one on the tank. So when you take the picture, the flash on your camera doesn't illuminate the fish at all but it wirelessly triggers the flash sitting on top of the tank pointing down.

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#8 Guest_blakemarkwell_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 11:13 PM

And all you need to get a 100mm macro lens is about 600 dollars! Just to get pictures of Elassoma sp. and pillbugs!

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#9 Guest_viridari_*

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Posted 03 December 2008 - 11:44 PM

And all you need to get a 100mm macro lens is about 600 dollars! Just to get pictures of Elassoma sp. and pillbugs!

Well for mine it's more like $500 but yes.

This is how it works with SLR's. The camera body is cheap. It's the glass and light that you pay through the nose for.

How else do you think they get those great photographs in magazines?

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#10 Guest_teleost_*

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Posted 04 December 2008 - 09:19 AM

I think a 100 mm macro might be a bit much for even Elassoma and could be restrictive for anything but parts of fish. I think a 60 mm macro is appropriate for most fish photos.
Below I've photographed a notropis head and cropped out the eye. This photo has not been enlarged.
I used a Canon Rebel XT body with a Canon 60 mm maco lens.

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#11 Guest_viridari_*

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Posted 04 December 2008 - 10:42 AM

Taken with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi and a 50mm non-macro lens.

I had to crop it down because I couldn't get close enough to fill the frame the way I wanted. That's where macro capability comes in handy (you don't necessarily need to be right on top of the fish).

That green terror is 3x or so bigger than the average Elassoma. A 50mm macro wouldn't have been enough for that same shot in the same tank with a smaller fish. 85mm? Maybe. 100mm? Definitely, though as it is not a zoom it will require moving back and forth to compose the image and frame it right.

I shot the same fish with a 100mm lens on my Minolta X700 (film) and I think I was only a couple of feet away from the front of the tank. For a little Elassoma I'd have to get much closer with the same lens.

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#12 Guest_JohnO_*

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Posted 04 December 2008 - 11:21 AM

Long macros are nice, but you can end up fighting to get back depth of field. I'm shooting darters with an Olympus E3, 50 Macro and twin head macro flash. DOF with this setup for subjects very close is 2-3cm, and that's with the increased DOF of the smaller sensor. If they're at any sort of angle, part of them will be out of focus. It helps that darters tend to be small, and do sit still on occasion. It hurts that they don't sit still for long, and so far they have resisted my requests to raise their dorsal fin on cue. Thank heavens for 10x magnification on live view, it eliminates focus errors.

Shooting them in a full size tank can be a bit of a challenge, but they look so much more natural when they're not confined or in a photo box.

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#13 Guest_natureman187_*

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Posted 04 December 2008 - 11:55 PM

Nice pictures Brian!
I'm thinking of getting a couple blackbandeds or bluespotteds for my 75 which do you prefer? Or both together?

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#14 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 06 December 2008 - 01:21 AM

They behave quite differently, Bluespotteds tend to slink around and hide in the shadows a lot and come out when it's feeding time, blackbandeds sit right out in the open suspended above the plants all the time and are very nice to watch. Then the bandeds seem to be rather bold and act much like a lot of lepomis species and just sit in the front of the tank begging for food every time you walk by. All three have different personalities and I would say get them all if you can. I have bluespots but I'm all out of extra's of the other two.

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#15 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 08 December 2008 - 11:20 PM

A few more pictures... Also thanks for all the suggestions on what else I can do to get better photo's. I think for now I just need to learn how to use what I have and then I'll move on from there. This is actually a macro lens with a range of 17-70mm. My wife is more of the photographer but I'm learning and didn't really realize it was a macro lens. I set up the tripod tonight, actually cleaned the glass, and stuck the lens right up to the front of the tank and tried to use the f-stops and shutter speed to get photo's without a flash on the manual settings. I was successful on some banded sunfish and one of a spotted sucker but with the low light the shutter speed was 1/8 and I just gave up waiting on fish to sit still and tried to figure out what settings to use with the flash to make them come out more natural. Over all I was pretty happy with the results.

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#16 Guest_birdpond_*

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Posted 11 January 2009 - 10:07 PM

Hi, any new shots with you D90? I'd love to see what else you've been getting with it.

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#17 Guest_teleost_*

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Posted 11 January 2009 - 10:15 PM

Hey Brian, the photos are looking great but I've been meaning to ask....I believe I see Macrhybopsis storeriana and hope you can tell us a little about your experiences with captive care.

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#18 Guest_benmor78_*

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Posted 11 January 2009 - 11:18 PM

smbass... on your 12/8 post, what is the Lepomid in the third pic from top?

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#19 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 12 January 2009 - 11:05 PM

Yes Uland you are correct that would be a silver chub... I tried to keep them a few times from lake Erie under far from perfect collecting conditions with no success. This one came from the Ohio River that i got while doing a Sander sp. tailwater survey in Nov. It was collected in cold weather and very quickly put in it's own bucket. It made it home despite the bucket of water becoming half frozen on the drive back to our office. I slowly warmed it up, kept it in a quarantine tank for a week, and then put it into my stream tank. It has been doing just fine since and feeding on flakes and frozen blood worms.

The sunfish in that third pic is Enneacanthus obbesus, not a Lepomis sp.

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#20 Guest_benmor78_*

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Posted 13 January 2009 - 07:54 AM

Yes Uland you are correct that would be a silver chub... I tried to keep them a few times from lake Erie under far from perfect collecting conditions with no success. This one came from the Ohio River that i got while doing a Sander sp. tailwater survey in Nov. It was collected in cold weather and very quickly put in it's own bucket. It made it home despite the bucket of water becoming half frozen on the drive back to our office. I slowly warmed it up, kept it in a quarantine tank for a week, and then put it into my stream tank. It has been doing just fine since and feeding on flakes and frozen blood worms.

The sunfish in that third pic is Enneacanthus obbesus, not a Lepomis sp.

Ah, I thought i might be a bantam or something. As far as I can gather, we don't have any Enneacanthus species in Texas.