photographing small groups of fish

I did a 1,5 hour dive in a fresh water patch near home a few weeks ago.

I did see some small fish schools, but didnt really have any luck. I used a 60mm macro on a canon 20D. I had a hard time focussing. I tried using a focus light, but even the light of a mini C lite scared them. Also the perch were very scared.......

Most of them turned out like this, if I was able to get focus at all

the better one, with a rather distracting background, was this one

Other animals behaved better, but they had to guard their eggs I suppose

what techniques are others using to get small schools: maybe use preset focus ?

Is the * button and custom function technique the key (using canon 20D in ikelite)

Gerard

PS: clicking through to the flickr link, you can get the exif: but these are taken with a 60mm macro.

I did a 1,5 hour dive in a fresh water patch near home a few weeks ago.

 

I did see some small fish schools, but didnt really have any luck. I used a 60mm macro on a canon 20D. I had a hard time focussing. I tried using a focus light, but even the light of a mini C lite scared them. Also the perch were very scared.......

 

Most of them turned out like this, if I was able to get focus at all

 

 

the better one, with a rather distracting background, was this one

 

 

Other animals behaved better, but they had to guard their eggs I suppose

 

 

what techniques are others using to get small schools: maybe use preset focus ?

 

Is the * button and custom function technique the key (using canon 20D in ikelite)

 

Gerard

PS: clicking through to the flickr link, you can get the exif: but these are taken with a 60mm macro.

I use a nikonos V for underwater, but I just wanted to chime in with saying that I always focus with the * button on my 20D. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm a student photojournalist as of now, and the * focus is the best way to focus and reframe, and hold the same focus if necessary, or focus quick before shots. Hope that helped somewhat, even though it was somewhat out of context.

small fish in schools are particularly tough to photograph. Even with a diffuser the closer subjects tend to get blown out. Then you typically have a tough time finding a solid center to focus on as well. I just took some in Cozumel and threw them all away.