Aquarium Photo Guide by Zheyi!

General guidelines & rules when photoing @ ocean park.

  • Flash is not allowed in the aquarium, because it is bad for marine life.
  • Flash may also causes glass reflection (but the auxiliary indicator light of my Nikon always automatically turns on when focusing items😭There is no way, just block it with your finger)
  • High ISO is essential when photoing indoor, so remember to turn on high ISO noise reduction (but it is said that some cameras can't shoot continuously with the noise reduction function turned on?)
  • Glass reflection problem: use a hood or photo by sticking to the glass to reduce reflections
  • Aperture Priority S mode is on: if overexposure, reduce exposure compensation by 1

Photo marine life & divers staff

  • high-speed continuous shooting mode essential
  • the faster the shutter, the better (the s/ number should be as small as possible)
  • the larger the aperture, the better (the f/ number should be as large as possible)

i.e.

In the photo, the diver staff is showing Yay when he found me photoing him. But later I found that there is glass reflection on the bottom right corner of the photo.😭

Photo people who are above the aquarium water

We sometimes encounter such problem: People's figure turns dark black when standing in front of the aquarium glass.

i.e.

You can take the advantage to take your friends' back/profile shots, such as this photo.

But it also has its shortcomings. The lighting indoor is insufficient, resulting in a dark blue background and black outlines of people.

The solution is to try to choose a marine aquarium background with sufficient light sources from the aquarium, like the photo shown below.

The photo above has sufficient indoor light sources, so figures are not black and the background water is not a large blue

In the photo above, the light source above comes from the upper right corner and upper left corner, so even if the middle of the photo is a little dark, the light on both sides can balance the overall coordination of the photo well.

I captured it during the show of Mermaid Fairy Tale Theater, so we can see that the burst mode is very important!

Photo people and glass from the side

In this case, we can take the advantage of the reflection of glass, like the photo shown below.

(The photo above originates from zhihu.com)

Photo jellyfish

In the case, we often face these problems:

  • Not able to press the shutter when jellyfish is not focused.
  • Also the background behind the jellyfish tank is cluttered

To solve the following problems, we can:

  • Turn the auto focus to manual focus, and then focus on one jellyfish.
  • Blur the background of other jellyfish if necessary
  • Burst Mode is recommended. Take a few more pictures and pick the good ones later.

i.e.

Photo @ undersea channel under the aquarium

  • Burst mode is a must.
  • Usually there will be some spots and beams of light shot down from the top. Use these spots, beams, and marine life, diving staff to compose your photos.

i.e.

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