Mighty Prawn

Oh and if the article helps you in some way, some thanks should go to degrassi for suggesting I do one of these. -Hideo

The first in a short series I will do on beginner photography. Later I will provide a guide on how all these principles can be adapted for aquarium photography. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are 3 things that affect your image quality in photography; ISO, aperture and shutter speed. All 3 of these things depend on one other factor which is light. A photograph is basically a chemical process in which light is exposed to film, or a sensor in digital cameras, and registers an image. There’s a device in the camera called the diaphragm, which is directly connected to aperture. The different aperture settings are called f-stops, and are represented by the numbers you see on the image. The larger the number, the smaller the aperture, so for example, an f-stop of f1.4 would be very large, while an f-stop of f16 would be very small. Typically, most consumer lenses have a range of f2 to f16. As a reference, I made a quick little diagram showing the diaphragm and how open it would be depending on f-stop. Don’t be overwhelmed by the technical terms and numbers and things like that, once you try everything out on the actual camera, it will all start to make sense. When I first went over the module on this it was all gibberish to me, until I actually took some pictures trying all the different settings. That’s when it all made perfect sense. Now, usually a faster shutter speed will require a larger aperture to allow enough light into the camera, and a slower shutter speed will need a smaller aperture to prevent too much light from getting in. You see, shutter speed is how long the shutter is open to allow light into the camera. Shutter speed is always measured in seconds. To demonstrate the effect of ISO, see the below image. Each photo was taken at 1/250th of a second, and the aperture set to f5.6, while the ISO was changed. The ISO is simply how sensitive the film, or censor in a digital camera, is to light. The lower the ISO is, the less sensitive it is to light. The higher the ISO is, the more sensitive it is to light. You can see from the photo below, that at 100 ISO, the picture is quite dark. At 400 ISO, the picture is better, and at 1600 ISO, the picture is far too bright. Depending on the ISO you are using, your shutter speed will have to be adjusted to allow the right amount of light for what you want to achieve. The more light that is available, the faster your shutter speed can be. The type of light will also change things, but that gets more complicated. All light has a temperature in degrees Kelvin, which also affects things. I won’t get into that yet, as it’s a little more advanced. Now, let’s talk a little about why shutter speed is important. It’s pretty simple, actually. The faster your shutter opens and closes, the less you have to worry about a blurry image. For most people, a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second is the slowest you can hand hold the camera before experiencing blur due to camera shake. If you are photographing a still object, or a slow moving object, a fast shutter speed isn’t as important. If you are photographing a fast moving object, a fast shutter speed suddenly becomes a necessity most of the time. Now remember, the higher the ISO, the more sensitive the film/censor will be to the light. So one might think it’s best to always use the highest ISO possible, right? The correct answer is; sometimes. In the next image we see something new, called grain. Grain is essentially how nice your photos look. Most of the time, you won’t be able to tell the difference in grain at standard print size of 4x6. However, if you ever have a photograph you’d like to enlarge, ISO suddenly becomes very important. The higher the ISO, the grainier your photo will look. Below I cropped just the face of an image, one at 100 ISO and the other at 1600 ISO. The first photo looks smoother, while the second looks, well, grainy. Most consumers won’t need to be making a lot of enlargements, so this doesn’t always matter. But even an amateur will sometimes get that one perfect shot they just would love to hang on their wall. Unfortunately, if that perfect shot was taken with a high ISO film, or using a high ISO setting on a digital camera, the size of the enlargement will be limited before it starts to look bad. I find for the average every-day John and Jane Q. Normal, 400 ISO is best. It gets more complicated of course if you’re looking at it from a professional level, and I may get into that another time. Finally, we get to what most people get lost on, Depth of Field. Let’s start this time by looking at a picture. Most likely, in the first frame, your eye is attracted to the figurine. This is because the back round is blurred, and unobtrusive. In the second frame still focused on the figurine, but a little distracted. In the last frame, your eye was probably drawn first to the red box, and when you look at the figurine, you’re distracted by the box in the center. So as you can see from the pictures, depth of field is essentially the area in front and behind the object that is in focus.. Each photo was taken with the same ISO, but both the shutter speed and aperture were changed. As you can see, the back round became less blurred the smaller the aperture. The entire time I kept focused on the figurine. Anything in front of, or behind the figurine would appear blurry. You can set things up however so that your depth of field is infinite (to a degree) and everything is sharp. The further away something is, the more infinite the focus can be. The closer it is, the more limited that becomes. For example, if taking a macro photo of a small insect, you can have the insect in focus, but no matter what lens or camera you have, you can focus on both the insect up close and mountains in the distance. The closer something is, the more limited the depth of field will be. Depth of Field is probably the most confusing to beginners, because reading about it can be complicated, as there are many different factors that will affect your depth of field. For example, a telephoto lens will have a more sensitive depth of field, while a wide angle lens will be less obvious. It’s easiest to tackle this one factor by taking your camera out and just trying the different aperture settings and distances from objects. Some cameras will have a depth of field preview button, that will show you in the viewfinder how the depth of field will look. This is a very helpful function to have, but if not, trial and error must be used for the beginner. The best thing to do is buy or rent an old, fully manual film camera. The biggest problem most beginners face is the ease of automatic features. Buying a fully manual camera forces you to learn these beginner concepts, which will aid greatly in how all you photographs will look in the future. My 2 favourite manual cameras are the Pentax K1000 and the Canon AE-1 (But do not get the Canon AE-1 Program, as it is largely automatic if you want it to be). The settings for all these functions will be available on most digital cameras, not just SLR’s. Chances are if your camera is 3 megapixels and up, it will have the right functions. You’ll have to consult your manual for help on where to find them and how to set them on your camera however. Next time, I will talk about the basics of composition, exploring things like image placement, shapes and perspective. ©2006 Red Sun Photography --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hopefully that's helpful for anyone who's interested in photography. I'm happy to answer any questions or to clarify if something is too confusing. -Hideo

Imperial Dynasty #2 in NE/NW Calgary in the Coventry area right by Silercity/empire Theatre's Stuido 16 is a pretty decent chinese food place. -Hideo

Guess there's no need to worry than! -Hideo

I was curious, how much rock exactly can you put in an aquarium? Preparing everything to set up my 180 at the end of next month, and I was a little worried about all the rock I'll need. I know the glass is thicker, but not wanting to somehow stress the tank and have 180 gallons all over my new floors, I want to be sure I get it right. Will putting a piece of plywood underneath on the stand help spread the weight around extra, or will it do nothing? I'll probably have 200-250 lbs of rock in there, including driftwood, but not including substrate. -Hideo

I use AC's almost exclusively. I run an AC 500 on my 55, as well as a Rena XP3. I run an AC 300 on my 33 gallon, an AC 300 on my 20, another AC 500 on my 17 puffer tank, AC 200 on my cray tank. I 'll be running a 55 gallon sump on my 180 gallon, and my Rena XP3 on there as well, I may be running an AC 300 on there, or a 200, as an experiment. I am thinking of running the filter empty, and rigging it up somehow to have a plant in there (houseplant) on some kind of a shelf I'd build into the filter. I've got a few other AC's laying around from tanks I took down. I personally don't like cannister filters so far. I've never had a problem with my water quality when I was using just my AC's, so the only advantage I have found thus far is the return hose giving me more options. A HOB filter has one option, waterfall. The cannister allows me more creativity, which I like. However, my Rena XP3 I bought used for 100$, and it pumps out 350 gph. My AC500 was 70$ new, and pumps out 500 gph. I wouldn't buy a cannister filter again, unless it pumps major gph and doesn't cost a fortune. However, I do like my XP3 enough that I'd never get rid of it. The customization of using the return hose pretty much however I want is quite nice. -Hideo

I used C02 when my 55g was planted as seen here. It's no longer planted, however. I have another tank, a 17 gallon that isn't running any C02, the plants look okay here, but are not doing as well now. I also have a 15 hex, and it has never ran C02. This is from a few months ago, and it was very lightly planted. And here's the same tank today. I heavily planted it around the start of February, and it's doing pretty fantastic. The bulb is just whatever came with the hood, and we don't use ferts or anything like that. As a note, on my 55, I had C02, ferts and constant attention to pruning, but the plants just were not happy. I think the light simply wasn't doing enough for them. If I ever planted another large tank, I'd give pressurized CO2 a try, and do my best to give off enough light. I haven't had much luck with C02, but the nicest tanks I've seen have all had a lot of attention to what the plants need. -Hideo

My best guess is a hybrid hartweg/red devil. BUT, I know very little about cichlids. Just looks like a combo of those 2 things to me. -Hideo

Doh! Sorry about that, for some reason I read most beautiful animal. I don't know how. Let me revise... There we go. Much better. -Hideo

Love the avatar, New To Fish. -Hideo

I like it, too, in some tanks. Depends on the fish, I guess. I think it would increase the security feeling of some shy fish, too, so that could be a benefit. -Hideo

I like the simplicity. It's quite striking and beautiful. -Hideo

Acrylic paint also works well if you want to paint an actual scene on the glass. Though I would reccomend doing it on a piece of plexi or acrylic cut to your tank in case you want to change it later on. -Hideo

Carbon will begin to release contaminates back into the water column after a period of use and must be discarded. The subsequent build up can certainly have some negative effects. So since I never use medication, should I just discard it completely? I honestly don't know, like I said, everything I read online is very vague and wishy washy. -Hideo

And even in those conditions, I've read of little success. Actually, I've never read of success at all, but both Toirtis and another friend of mine have said they have, both sources which I trust! -Hideo

I have it in all my tanks, but mostly just because it came with my filters. I don't medicate, so I don't ever take it out. Honestly, I asked a few times if it's worth it, and just got hums and haws. I figured if people aren't like, "OMG take it out!!!" it's not hurting anything. -Hideo

Marco it's alright, I deserve to be mocked and ridiculed, afterall, I did disagree with no less than 3 moderators and defended myself against condescending comments. -Hideo

You're all right, I'm an idiot. Now I'll bow out and leave you all to mock me. -Hideo

I'm not talking 911 here. I'd send him on his way WITH the fish. If anything there'd be an easy ticket or series of tickets to be had, and the cops in Calgary are generally anxious to fine or ticket people without feeling like they're just a tool of taxation with traffic violation after traffic violation. Maybe I'll spend some time working out, go be a cop, and do it myself ;-) Heck, it wouldn't be the first time I'd pursued a career path for a silly reason. -Hideo

Yes absolutely, the retired cop and the RCMP officer from Tofino are going to hurry on over to Calgary to investigate a hypothetical question. -Hideo

If I knew someone doing that, believe me, I would. Perhaps my friends are just humouring me because they know how I feel about animal cruelty, but I doubt it. You're right though, it's probably better not to try, and to simply send him to another store to make his purchase. Let's hear it for apathy! -Hideo

If someone is buying 200$ worth of bettas and admitting to fighting them as a betting event, yes, it could definately be a flag. The police take illegal gambling seriously. -Hideo

Did you read what I wrote? I spoke to a retired cop and a current RCMP officer, both said the same. These things are often tied in with gang activity. And in Calgary in particular, that is a very hot topic with the recent high gang activity. And if some guy is buying 1 or 2 bettas to fight them that would not be a flag, however if John Q. Normal is buying ALL of them like DAlberta stated (which is probably in the range of 40 bettas at 5$ a piece, 200$ total or more) that is going to raise a flag. Any average idiot isn't going to sink 200$ into buying some fish to fight them with his buddies. Cops investigate more things than you think they do. -Hideo

You'd most certainly have the police laugh at you. Actually, no. Curious if cops would actually care, I called up a friend of my family, who is a retired cop. He said if a person is admitting to an illegal fight involving any kind of animal, they'd take it very seriously. That's considered organized crime, most often associated with gang activity. To get a second opinion, I also called another friend of the family, currently an RCMP officer in Tofino, transferring to Nanaimo. He said he'd also take it seriously. The person wouldn't be arrested on the spot, but would definately qualify as cruelty to animals, with a very possible fine. -Hideo

Ahhh, I see. I'd just read about it a long time ago for something else, I just don't remember what. I thought it had to do with slugs or something. -Hideo