It is almost impossible to photograph tiny animals in the large, furnished showaquarium, as a rule they hide, or, when they appear, they are moving at an unfavorable location to the camera. Also, the distance between the subject and the camera is usually far too large to be image-filling.
Replacing the glass disc
It is therefore much more promising to set up a small photographing pool next to the large aquarium for the perfect imaging of miniature aquatic animals. It is important to ensure that the same environmental conditions as in the aquarium (filter system, water chemistry, heating, etc.) prevail in the photographing tank (especially in the case of sensitive sea water animals). Then the performers can quickly get used to taking pictures and show their natural behavioral repertoire. A problem is the front glass pane of the photographing basin, in several respects: on the one hand, the glass acts as an additional (bad) lens, which reduces the optical quality of the macro lens, depending on the thickness, and on the other hand, Softener filters and make the image appear fuzzy. And thirdly, one must pay attention to light reflections and reflections.
Avoid distortions
Remedy: First the 4 mm strong front disc of the standard aquarium is replaced by a 1.5 mm glass plate. This can be done with special silicone adhesive. Caution: The system is no longer as stable as before (risk of fracture, water damage). The edges are also not very nice, but you can not see them in the later photo.
Comment by Maximilian Weinzierl
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Next, make sure that the front panel of the aquarium is kept clean. On the inside, after a few days, a "growth" is deposited, which should be removed with a magnetic disc cleaner before the photographing. Outside, there are often lime or salt edges. These must be removed with a glass cleaner and lint-free cloth or lenticular paper.
The camera must never be oriented obliquely to the glass pane, otherwise distortions of all kinds occur. The best results are obtained when the lens is plane parallel to the front lens.
For this purpose, I aim the camera, which is mounted on a cross-slide system (Novoflex Castel Q for fine adjustment at the top, Cullmann CT 77 for quick adjustment at the bottom), by means of ball head and crankable tripod column so that the sun visor of the macro lens is flush against the glass pane. The plan parallelism is thus given. I then remove the sunblinds to take pictures.
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To follow the motifs, the camera is moved only parallel to the front disc: with the upper rail back and forth, with the lower rail to the left and right and with the crank up and down. The arrangement of the flash units can be precisely adjusted on Manfrotto Magic arms, so that the reflexes that are necessarily present in the glass can be controlled well and can be held outside the image area - make test recordings beforehand!
The following procedures have proven their worth in the macro aquarium photography:
In addition to taking photos, the behavioral observation makes at least as much fun. The behavior of the tiny hermit crabs can be studied more intensively in a well-lit mini aquarium at a distance of only a few centimeters than at a distance in a large Schaubecken. I can sit in front of the mini-aquarium for a long time and am amazed without taking a picture.
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Separate small photographing basin with the same environmental conditions as in the Schaubecken, as thin as possible the front glass pane, possibly in normal commercial aquaria exchange, Penile cleanness at the front glass pane, inside and outside, align camera / lens combination planparallel to the front disc, Back and up / down, no tilting of the camera, main light are two flash units: one for the foreground and one for the background, possibly a third very low-power reduction for the decided shadow lighting; magic arms (manfrotto) for precise and fast flash adjustment and light reflex control Code>
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