Shooting at an Aquarium

I finally have a digital (D70s), I absolutely love the live feedback and cant wait to get it in the water.

I live in Atlanta Ga and since we have our brand new aquarium, I thought I would take some pictures there. (until I order my housing and book a trip)

Flash photography is not allowed and I was curious if any of you have any experience in this area and can offer me some suggestions.

I'm fairly new to photography so I don't have a background or wide range of experience to fall on.

ISSUES/CONSIDERATIONS

I'm assuming the larger tanks will offer contrast issues (lighted tank/dark surroundings). I'm concered longer shutter times will overexpose the tank and wonder if a ND filter may be required.

Longer shutter will cause blurring from movement on my part and that of the animal. Is there a good asa/shuterspeed combination in such situations.

What if any type of filter will improve color quality.

Is there any mental outlook to make experience applicable to improving my photography below water

For full tank shots:

Use the longest focal length you can. Stand as far from the tank as you can and then zoom in. Remember tanks are flat. If you use a WA lens, you will have problems with refraction just like when you use a WA lens in a flat port. Try to avoid anything wider that 50mm equivalent.

I know you said flash is forbidden but even it it was not, do not try to use a flash (unless you are trying to light people in the forground) it will not help and just causes reflections on the glass.

6MP is not enough to capture all of the detail especially when you crop half of that away to fit the shape of the tank. You may want to try stitching multiple shots together.(this also makes it easier to use telephoto lens)

1/100 and F/4 is a good starting place. Lighting is much dimmer than you would think on all but the most brightly lit tanks. You will most likely have to use ISO 800 or higher.

For macro/closeups:

It sucks that you can not use a flash as a flash really helps with these sort of shots. So I will talk about flash technique anyway. If you could use a flash - I prefer the internal flash over external. Backwards from what you would expect, but it is easier to eliminate reflections with the internal flash. Shoot down relative to the top of the camera - The glass should not be perpindicular to the camera, the camera should be looking down at the glass. This will eliminate reflections from the flash. Do not use a flash on coral. Much of coral's pretty colours come from florescence, a flash will hide the colour and make the coral look brown.

Avoid shooting the glass at an angle. The camera should be very close to perpindicular to the glass to avoid refraction. Very close but not exactly - you want a slight downward angle when shooting with a flash.

Try to shoot the fish while they are close to the glass, and use a relatively large aperature to create separation from the background. Inless you want it to be obvious the shots were taken in an aquarium.

Avoid shots where the sand/glass interface is visable. This really screams aquarium/artifical setting.

If you are allowed to, lean against the glass with your left hand which is also supporting the lens. Provides a very stable shooting platform.

The same settings work well for macro as well 1/100 and F/4 is a good starting point.

Thanks for the tips, I wasn't even considering the wide angle issue. I'll post some pictures after my nextvisit