Tips for photographing a marine aquarium with a Nikon Z5II

[LucVogels]

Dear Members,
I have been an enthusiastic marine aquarium hobbyist for over twenty years and enjoy sharing photos of my aquarium through the appropriate channels.
For many years, I photographed with a Nikon D5500.
Over the past three years, however, I found myself using that camera less and less, relying mainly on my smartphone instead.
Recently, I decided to take photography seriously again and purchased a Nikon Z5II along with two lenses: the 105mm Macro f/2.8 and the 24-120mm f/4.
To be honest, I have noticed that I have lost some of my routine over the years.
In addition, my new camera offers many features that I still need to learn how to use effectively.
To properly compare the effects of different settings, I repeatedly take overview photographs of my aquarium from the same position and under consistent ambient and aquarium lighting conditions.
By now, I have taken more than 400 photos and gathered a number of initial observations.
I would appreciate hearing whether my conclusions make sense and whether there are additional ways to improve the photo directly in-camera, without post-processing.
I will start with two photos and then explain how I arrived at these results.
I am not yet satisfied and suspect there is still more performance to be gained from the camera.
At the moment, I am shooting with the 24-120mm f/4 at 24mm. I use Manual (M) mode for maximum control. ISO is set to Auto ISO, while I adjust the other settings manually.

No physical filter:

With some alternative settings and a brownfilter.

My observations so far​

Shutter Speed​

With shutter speeds slower than 1/250 second, motion blur becomes visible when fish make sudden movements. A shutter speed of 1/160 second seems to be the minimum acceptable value, but 1/250 second provides a bit more safety margin.

ISO​

ISO values above 10,000 appear to introduce noticeably more noise, particularly in the background and shadow areas.

Aperture​

An aperture of f/4 has the advantage of keeping the ISO relatively low. However, the aquarium then appears rather flat, and the sense of depth is not adequately rendered. An aperture around f/7.2 to f/8 seems to be the best compromise.

Metering Mode​

After roughly one hundred photos, I concluded that my images were consistently overexposed. After trying various settings, I initially settled on Center-Weighted Metering. However, I noticed that the brightness of the gray aquarium cabinet surrounding the tank was influencing the exposure.
For that reason, I switched to Highlight-Weighted Metering. So far, this appears to work best, partly because the lighting comes from above and consists of approximately 1,000 watts of LED lighting. To prevent the image from becoming too dark, I apply an exposure compensation of +0.3 EV.

AF-Area Mode​

For autofocus, I use a customized Wide-Area AF mode. This allows me to focus specifically on the contents of the aquarium and helps prevent the camera from selecting the cabinet surrounding the tank as the subject.

Camera Position​

It remains important to position the camera directly in front of the aquarium glass. As soon as I shoot at an angle, clear sharpness differences appear between the left and right sides of the aquarium.

Three aspects I am still not satisfied with​

1. Sharpness​

This is the most important point for me. Is this approximately the maximum sharpness I can achieve, or should I expect more? I have the impression that the entire aquarium is not being rendered sharply. What could be causing this, and which settings should I still experiment with?

2. Dark Areas​

Due to the Highlight-Weighted Metering, the less brightly lit portions of the aquarium remain quite dark. Because of the moving fish, bracketing does not seem practical. I still plan to experiment with Active D-Lighting. Are there any other in-camera options that might improve the rendering of these darker areas?

3. Color​

Color reproduction is currently of secondary importance; I prefer to tackle one thing at a time. The difference between Photo 1 and Photo 2 is the use of a brown correction filter. Unfortunately, this filter costs approximately two to three stops of light.

My General Question​

Do my observations seem reasonable, and are there any specific settings or techniques that could help improve this type of full-tank overview photograph?
Thank you very much in advance for your thoughts and suggestions!

Overview of the settings used:

 

[Clovishound]

Have you looked at articles and videos on aquarium photography? I could probably hazard a few suggestions, but never having attempted this type of photography, I would be guessing at best. I noticed that Youtube has a number of videos. Obviously, you have to take their advice with a grain or two of salt, but they can frequently provide a lot of things to think about and try.

The main question I have is are you editing your photos? I would think some of the issues you bring up could be handled, at least in part, in post processing. For example, the dark shadow detail can often be recovered fairly easily in post. Digital sensors are quite tolerant of underexposure, not so much with overexposure, hence frequent issues with blown out highlights. Of course, additional lighting would easily take care of shadows, although glare on the glass would have to be dealt with. There are always trade offs.

 

[Needa]

Great job documenting your process. Have no experience with aquariums.

The 24-120 is not known as the sharpest lens, perhaps a fixed focal length lens with better sharpness. Supposedly the lens is sharpest at 35mm @ F4 but your depth of field would shallow, tried F11. Remember you are shooting through water which tends to defuse light so sharpness may always be an issue.
I like the second image color but the filter is costing you a lot can you achieve similar results with white balance in camera or post? Is there different aquarium lighting where you could change the color and intensity? Might be something to play with if affordable.

As Clovishound mentioned today's software can do a lot with sharpness, shadows and color. It is always best to start with best you can get in camera and you are well on you way.

 

[tonye]

Hi and welcome, nice aquarium. I have never tried this type of photography but personally would approach this in a totally different way, i would manually set my ISO to around 400 and in aperture priority set to around f11 to retain depth with a setup of two flashes, one each side at low level pointing slightly up to reduce glare. This with the overhead lighting will fill the dark areas and stop all movement. It might look a bit more natural with only one flash set low as a fill flash. All just my thoughts on the subject, worth a try and see what happens, best of luck.

 

[LucVogels]

Thanks alot for the feedback!

I went over various video's and articles on aquarium photography before posting anything on this forum.
I learned quite some things (and implemented a few of them in the above images) but most articles focus on close-ups and specifics instead of full tank shots of such size aquarium. Therefore I was hoping I maybe missed some obvious features and functions I could play around with on my camera (of which I surely do not know/understand all options).

I will try to shoot from 35mm.. this makes sense to give a try!

I am able to play with the intensity and color point of the lighting. Making it more white (or better saying less blue since the color point hits over 10.000Kelvin) is an option I can play around with.
I understand a lot of things can be corrected with post processing but want to reach the maximum raw quality with the hardware I now have.

 

[LucVogels]

Hi and welcome, nice aquarium. I have never tried this type of photography but personally would approach this in a totally different way, i would manually set my ISO to around 400 and in aperture priority set to around f11 to retain depth with a setup of two flashes, one each side at low level pointing slightly up to reduce glare. This with the overhead lighting will fill the dark areas and stop all movement. It might look a bit more natural with only one flash set low as a fill flash. All just my thoughts on the subject, worth a try and see what happens, best of luck.

Interesting approach. I wonder if a flash from the frontside will not cause to much reflections and glare. I will give it a try.
For photographing fish I tend to use a flasher from the top but never considering using it from the front (under an angle).
Why do you want to keep the ISO so low? And why the choice of F11 (balance between depth?). Thanks for the tips.

 

[tonye]

Low ISO will not have as much noise in the shot and should look sharper, its also a good starting point using flash, f11-16 should give you a lot more leeway with your focus point. Hope this helps.

 

[BF Hammer]

The stacked sensor of the Z5-II has a base ISO of 100 where it performs best, but a "second base level" ISO 800 where the noise level dips again on a graph. So you would do better to run ISO 800 than 400 from a noise reduction perspective.

I know the learning curve gets steeper if you change to saving and working with Raw files, but it rewards you with being able to adjust your white balance entirely in software. And recovering dark shadows.

I don't know of any way to use a flash that won't glare in the glass, unless you use off-camera directly above the tank with a diffuser.

 

[Needa]

I will try to shoot from 35mm.. this makes sense to give a try!

The information I provided was for the F mount similar information should be available for the Z 24-120, missed the Z5II usage. I understand it to be much sharper but it may have a sweet spot.

 

[tonye]

From Google


To avoid glare when using a flash through a glass fish tank, position your flash at a 45-degree angle to the glass. You can also press the flash or lens directly against the glass, or use a polarizing filter to cut out reflections. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Best Methods to Stop Glare

• • The 45-Degree Rule:
    • Move the flash off your camera.
    • Turn the flash to point at the glass from the side at a sharp 45-degree angle.
    • Light bounces away from your camera lens instead of back into it. [1, 2]
  • Press Against the Glass:
    • Put your camera lens hood flat against the glass tank.
    • If using an external flash, hold it flush against the side or top glass panel.
    • This blocks stray light from bouncing in the gap. [1]
  • Use a Polarizing Filter:
    • Screw a circular polarizing filter (CPL) onto your camera lens.
    • Rotate the filter ring until the reflections on the water and glass disappear. [1, 2, 3]
  • Block Room Lights:
    • Turn off all lights in the room except the tank light.
    • Wear dark clothes so your reflection does not show in the photo. [1, 2, 3]

As i suggested earlier, off camera flash at an angle.

 

[Clovishound]

I will add that the Z 105 micro lens is a very sharp lens. It may be longer than you want for shots of the entire tank, but I would think would be ideal for shots of individual small fish. I have used one for several years, primarily shooting insects, and it never fails to perform extremely well.

 

[LucVogels]

This evening I did some experiments based on the feedback above.

The baseline:
I have increased the light settings to achieve the maximum intensity in the tank.
The first picture I shot with 1/250s F/7.1 (auto ISO 1800) +0.3EV with 24mm focal length.

The image after is shot at 35mm (34.5 to be exact ) with the same settings.

Image 3 has the same settings as 2 but I believe the focus point is changed a small bit.

Image 4 I have increased to F/9, and compensated lighting by reducing shutter to 1/200 and +0.7EV. The ISO changed to 2800. I do not like this image. What is the main cause here?

Image 5 I started to play with an external flasher. I have positioned it under an angle to prevent a nasty reflection. I notice I have to place it far in order to get an evenly distributed flash. Directly flashing from above will never get an evenly distributed intensity; the tank is too big for that. I am also not sure if I like the flash from the front. it does not feel natural or am I wrong?

F/9 1/200 ISO 800 and +0.3EV

F/9 1/200 ISO 800 and -0.3EV