Whole tank shots with a fisheye?

[jhemdal1]

Hi All,

Just curious - I need to make a photographic record of a number of public aquarium exhibits prior to their renovation. Each tank is 4 to 6 feet wide and about 4 feet tall. I need to get the whole tank in the shot and in focus front to back (depth is about 3 1/2'). I have a Nikon D300. I found a new fisheye lens by Bower that has gotten good reviews - an 8mm manual focus lens that makes full frame 180 degree shots (as opposed to circular) for $289 (so about 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the similar Nikon). Has anyone used a lens like this for whole tank shots?

Thanks,

Jay

 

[clippo]

depends how much working distance you have really. A fisheye will do it but you might have to correct distortion in PS afterwards. Not familiar with that lens but have used a 10mm on a 1.6 crop body for shots of large tanks myself.

 

[jamesw]

Good question.

I do a lot of photography and really only use the fisheye underwater. You should be able to get a good full-tank shot using a lens like the 12-24mm or 11-16mm Tokina (both are reasonably priced).

If you really need to use a fisheye then I recommend the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom - it's awesome.

Cheers
James

PS, can you tell I'm a fan of Tokina lenses? They make many of the optics for Nikon btw...

 

[Len]

Can you stitch photos together using a conventional WA lens? It would provide a much better documentary than a FE lens.

 

[jamesw]

Just make sure the fish don't swim across the tank while you're making the pano - or else the same fish will appear multiple times in the photo! Seriously.

Cheers
James

 

[jhemdal1]

James,

Thanks - B&H has the Tokina 12-24 for $400, so I'm looking at getting that. I *think* that Tokina just came out with a new model that has the focus motor in the lens (I have a D300 so that isn't an issue) but because that is selling for $500, I think they dropped the price of the old model....so that is fine by me.

Jay

 

[BCinYa]

I'd avoid using a fisheye lens for aquarium photography. Especially it you are wanting an accurate documentary image as they distort the lines in an image significantly. The same is true for stitching multiple images together in a pano (shoot from a single camera position).

Here's a snapshot I just did to illustrate what a fish eye lens does to an aquarium...

Yes, I know the aquascaping is inspirational. The front of the lens was about 3-4 inches from the glass of the tank.

Yes, it's true that you can more than likely fix the distortions in PhotoShop (or the like), but it's unnecessary, extra work and why would you when there's ease alternatives? Fixing that kind of distortion in PS will result in the loss of a significant amount of image area due to the cropping that will occur in the process. And, if you're not careful with your framing when you're shooting you could loose parts of the tank in the image.

The 12 to 24mm lens you're looking at is a good focal length range but Tokina's optic quality could be better. Lens cost vrs. sharpness is something that you'll have to decide for your own application.

As far as the 3-1/2 foot depth of the tank, you won't have any problem with the really wide lenses. The depth of field is enough at the camera to subject distances you'll be at to photograph a 6 foot tank. Just keep your aperture in the mid to small range. That's going to suck for your shutter speed and or ISO though. I'd try to get as much light over the tanks as possible to help with that problem. You can check out this DOF calculator to get more specific info. http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Keep in mind that the perspective of your image will change depending on the focal length you use. Wider focal lengths allow you to get closer to the tank and will exaggerate perspective, making the foreground more prominent. This also gives the viewer more of a scene of being 'in' the scene. Longer focal lengths will compress or flatten perspective. Giving both the back and foreground elements more equal visual weight.

Here's an example I did for class...

90 gallon curved front corner aquarium. The camera to subject distance was changed to keep the sides of the tank just inside the frame of the image.

It's shape is something like this

Take note of..
how the curved front of the tank straightens out with the longer lens.
the difference of the underside of the surface of the water.
how the rocks & corals in the foreground relate to the rocks in the background.

17mm lens, about 4 feet from the tank

60mm lens, about 20 feet from the tank

 

[jhemdal1]

BCinYa,

Thanks for the information. I bought the Tokina and have been having a blast with it. I've photo-documented all of the exterior shots and work areas of the building so far. The tank shots are more of a problem. The exhibits have backlit graphics. If I use a flash, the interior of the exhibits look good, but the graphics get washed out. If I use ambient light (very dark), the backlit graphics pop, but the interior of the exhibits are too dark. The exhibits have skylights, so I tried using a tripod on a really sunny day - the exposure was fine, but the slow shutter speed caused all the fish to blur. I know what I need - a studio flash operated remotely by radio control above each tank while I stand out in the dark hallway....but that is too costly and time consuming. I may just end up shooting each tank and its graphics as two different images.

Here is one of the exterior shots:

Jay