|
A
lot of people write to me asking for the best technique to
shoot photos of their aquariums. George wrote a great article
about it in this site, so, the best think you can do, is to read it
carefully and... shoot, shoot and shoot again! Practice is the best
teacher in this field!
In
these days, I'm trying a different technique to snap images
for my job. When I do a new aquascape in my shop, I have no problem
to take photos of the tank, but, sometimes, when I work outside, it
is impossible for me to bring the cameras, tripod and the lighting
equipment in order to record my work, not to mention the fact that
sometimes the client doesn't like to have a group of people to
stroll around his house for a couple of hours!
So
I started thinking of an alternative (and less intrusive) way to
have a record of my work. What came out, was something much, much,
MUCH more surprising than I thought!
A
Video-camera is easy to use: it doesn't require special lights
(actually they're sensitive even to very faint light), they don't
need a tripod because of their light weight, they show right away
the result of the shooting and, last but not least, they let you
take a movie, that means, at the end, A LOT of pictures to view, in
order to choose the best one!
Once,
the quality of the imagines was very poor, but today you can have a
better result, maybe not as good as photos but good enough to have
small prints or to show them on the internet. And, let me tell you
that the possibilities are so surprising that a little decay of the
quality can be tolerated. Can you imagine how difficult it would be
to shoot pictures of the courting of a Betta splendens in the
classical way and how easy and much more detailed will this be if
you try a video-camera instead (see next page)?
I
use a cheap video camera which I chose based on 2 important
requisites: the higher sensitivity and the compatibility to the
video software in my computer.
The
result... You can see by yourself ! Not bad, what do you think?
Technical
data:
Video-camera:
Panasonic RX11
Software:
Matrox mistique + Matrox MGA 64-bit graphics Raimbow runner
and Photoshop 5.0
Using the
video-camera, it is easy to shoot difficult pictures without
spending a lot of time in discouraging attempts ! Here you can
see my two Astronotus ocellatus from their best angle!
Fish
are very funny creatures! But, as every photographer knows very well
they move so fast that it's almost impossible to portrait them at
their best! As you can see, even a gold fish can be amusing, if you
capture it at the right moment.
Continued
in next page
|
