Advice on Glasscat photos?

[RoseFishWatcher]

Hopefully I chose the most appropriate forum. Although I am looking for suggestions at getting good photos of my glass cats, general picture taking help would be wonderful.

I'm using a oldish digital camera - a Nikon Coolpix2000. Despite the fact that the glass cats are usually hovering relatively still, I can't get many in-focus pictures of them. In addition, they always look milky instead of glassy.

I'm not good enough at lighting or photography to figure out how to get better pictures of them. I am able to photo some of my other fish with reasonable success. I suspect my biggest problem is lighting, followed by the somewhat slow (relative to my fish at least) speed my camera takes pictures at. I am not aware of any way to change the speed of the camera.

Any suggestions or tips would be most welcome.

[apistomaster]

Hi RoseFishWatcher,
I'm also just a beginner with digital photography of fish but glass cats seem like they pose unique problems. Photos of polarbears in a snowstorm comes to mind

[Gozza]

Ive never actually tried photographing glass cats before. What you could try is putting your camera on a tripod or a something like a sturdy chair with a bucket on top often works, if possible use the self timer so your finger movements don't blur the image. Turn the flash off. Your next problem is focusing the camera. Most auto focusses will focus on the front glass not the fish. What you can do with some digi cams is focus at something the same distance away as fish then aim back at the tank whilst holding the shutter release half down. If the camera has a manual focus even better use that. Your other option is put the lense as close to the tank as possible ( >5cm ) the auto focus wont be able to focus on the glass and will focus on the fish instead, doesnt always work though. The reason the fish look blury and milky is the the shutter is on for a long time, that camera as far as i know doesnt have controlls to change that so what I suggest is you make the tank brighter. To get best results try and add extra lighting from above the tank that way there will be no reflections on the glass. turning the lights of in the room can often help at cutting down reflections Just another thought you might getter better results if turn the exposure settings down, your cameras manual should tell you how to do this. Hope this was of some help.