Apistogramma from Colombia and Venezuela

[Taka Apisto]

Always nice to have a macro lens like your Sony SEL 30mm f/3.5 macro. I'm more curious about how you get a totally black background. Is it done in postprocessing or do you use some other form of magic?

In my case, I use an aquarium with a depth of 36cm or more, move the lighting as close to the front as possible to make the background dark, and block light from the sides. And above all, the key is to make the fish look their best.

 

[apistonoob99]

In my case, I use an aquarium with a depth of 36cm or more, move the lighting as close to the front as possible to make the background dark, and block light from the sides. And above all, the key is to make the fish look their best.

Captured using this technique with my phone.

 

[Mike Wise]

I can see the difference between a phone and a camera and proper lighting. I don't think that I've taken more than a dozen photos with my phone; thousands with my cameras.

 

[anewbie]

I can see the difference between a phone and a camera and proper lighting. I don't think that I've taken more than a dozen photos with my phone; thousands with my cameras.

Which camera ?

 

[Mike Wise]

Which camera ?

It depends on when I took my photos. The camera brand doesn't matter as much as technique. To answer your question, however, I've always used Pentax: 1968, Pentax Spotmatic (bought at a PX in Viet Nam); 1980, Pentax LX; 2007, Pentax K20d; 2015, Pentax K5 which I haven't seen the need to upgrade since it has the fantastic Sony 15mp sensor. The nice thing about the Pentax brand is that I can use every lens and bit of equipment that I've bought since 1968. It includes too many lenses, a bellows/slide copier, dedicated flashes, etc.

 

[Wojtek.86]

Tak naprawdę jest odwrotnie Mike, to wszystko są zdjęcia Takiego - jednego z najlepszych fotografów Apisto, jakich znam.

jak m what do you think, can these fish in nature and in an aquarium be so colorful and beautiful? is it the effect of special aquarium lamps and how to color these fish so much? I have been breeding wild apistogramma for a few years now but I have never had such colorful and beautiful ones and I have tried different methods, they lived for a long time for a few years but they lacked so much red

 

[Wojtek.86]

myślisz, że Do you think that these fish are actually so colorful in nature and in the aquarium?

 

[Mike Wise]

Yes, they can look this colorful if viewed by reflected sunlight or flash, especially when viewed with a highly contrasting background. We normally view our fish in an aquarium using light from the top. If you use a flashlight with a more sun-like color temperature and aim it directly at the flanks of the fish you will see the difference. Also recently caught wild fish lose color after time in an aquarium. This is probably due to having a more varied diet in the wild. You might want to look at TomC's photos of A. cf. ortegai (Pebas) Morado at https://www.tomc.no/fish.aspx?fishIndexID=2293&gruppeID=1. The first (just caught) photo is using reflected sunlight. The following are using a flash.