If you want to be able to submerse your camera, you need an underwater camera or underwater housing for your ordinary camera. If you decide to purchase an underwater camera, keep in mind that the cheap variant that you can find in tourists shops and similar tend to take low quality pictures. This type of camera can be great if all you want is a few snapshots from your scuba diving trip, but don’t expect sharp, high-quality pictures. Also, these cameras are typically single-use cameras; you will have to turn the entire camera in to have your 24 or 30 pictures developed. Last but not least, they don’t handle pressure well so you need to stay fairly close to the surface (typically 5-10 meters) to prevent your camera from being ruined by the increasing water pressure.

If you decide to get an underwater house for your existing camera, it is important to get one that fits your particular camera model. The camera housing needs to fit the camera perfectly. Also, make sure that the camera housing is sturdy enough to handle the type of pressure you’re planning on exposing it to. You can get more information by contacting the manufacturer of your camera; most brands have their own line of underwater houses.

When taking underwater pictures, regardless if you submerse your camera or not, you need to take into account that light travels differently in water than in air. Since water is more difficult for the light to penetrate, you may have to use extra lighting to take good pictures. Even an aquarium that is just 50 cm deep may need special lighting for the pictures to turn out right. If you’re a scuba diver, you are probably already familiar with how dark it gets the further down you go and how it affects the colours. Even at a dept of just a few meters your pictures may start looking bluish since the light needed to produce red colours have been filtered out by the water. Bluish underwater pictures can still look great, but they’re not ideal if you want to depict the “true” colours of the underwater landscape, e.g. if you want to show how a certain marine fish would look in an aquarium.

The water quality will have a tremendous impact on the overall appearance of your pictures, so plan in advance. If you’re going scuba diving, ask a local dive shop or similar about the best time to go. Visibility is for instance known to decrease dramatically after heavy rains since so much debris gets flushed out into the ocean from rivers and streams. There may also be parts of the year when algae blooms make the water much murkier than normal. If you’re taking aquarium pictures, clean the aquarium in advance to give any silt time to settle. Make a substantial water change, vacuum the substrate, remove debris, and clean both sides of the aquarium glass. Sometimes algae growing on the glass will look great in a picture and give the entire setting a more lush and natural vibe, but in other situations you need to get rid of it in advance. Don’t forget that the camera can pick up tiny speckles of algae and dirt on the glass that your naked eye may miss or simply disregard.

The history of photography dates back to the early 19th century, but the technique that made photography possible rests on much older ideas and inventions. During the 5^th and 4^th centuries B.C., the pinhole camera was described by prominent figures such as the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti, Greek philosopher Aristotle, and Greek mathematician Euclid. Arab scientist Ibn al-Haytham (965–1040) – often reffered to as the “father of modern optics” – studied both the pinhole camera and the camera obscura and gave the oldest known clear description and correct analysis of how a camera obscura works.

In 1568, Italian scientist Daniel Barbaro published his treatise “La pratica della perspettiva” (Practice of Perspective) which includes the earliest known account of a lens being utilized with the camera obscura. This treaty also explains how the image can be improved by adjusting the distance upon which the image is to be projected. Barbaro himself preferred to use a bi-convex lens.

Other important stepping stones for the development of the modern camera were laid by early chemists. Dominican friar and bishop Albertus Magnus (1193/1206 – 1280) discovered silver nitrate, and Georges Fabricius (1516-1571) discovered silver chloride. In the late 17^th century, a Dutch lawyer and physician named Wilhelm Homberg described how certain chemicals turned dark when exposed to light, the so called photochemical effect. In the early 18^th century, German professor Johann Heinrich Schulze showed how certain silver salts, especially silver chloride and silver nitrate, turns dark in the presence of light, and how a mixture of silver and chalk reflects less light than untarnished silver.

The first photograph - Niépce and Daguerre

The first permanent photograph was produced in 1825 by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. When the first permanent photograph was taken, Niépce had been experimenting with optical images for over 30 years. During this period of trial-and-error he did manage to create images, but they faded very fast.

The first permanent photograph depicts a 17^th century engraving of a boy leading a horse. This photograph wasn’t re-discovered until 2002 when it was found in a French photograph collection and sold for 450,000 Euros. Some sources claim that an even older Niépce photograph exists or have existed; a foggy picture of a table with food supposedly taken in 1822.

To create his first permanent photography, Niépce used a polished pewter sheet covered with bitumen of Judea, a petroleum derivative. Before covering the sheet, he dissolved the bitumen in lavender oil. The coated pewter was placed inside a camera obscura and left there for eight hours. When bitumen is exposed to light, it hardens, and the unhardened bitumen can then be washed away with lavender oil to form a crude type of negative. To produce a photograph, Niépce polished the pewter and coated it with ink before being pressed against a paper.

Working together with artist and chemist Louise Daguerre, Niépce continued to refine his methods until he died of a stroke in 1833. Together, Niépce and Daguerre developed the physautotype process. After the death of his partner, Daguerre continued the work on his own, creating the Danguerreotype process which relied on silver placed on a copper plate. In 1839 the invention was purchased by the French government “on behalf of the people of France”. Daguerre got a yearly stipend of 6,000 Francs for the remainder of his life, and the estate of Niépce was also given 4,000 Francs per annum.

Niépce is today credited with producing the very first permanent photograph in history, while Daguerre has his indubitable place in photograph history due to two crucial discoveries made by him. Daguerre was the first person to realize that you can form a latent image by exposing the silver to iodine vapour before exposing it to light, provided that you also expose the silver to mercury fumes after the photograph has been taken. Daguerre also showed that bathing such a silver plate in a salt bath afterwards will fix the image.

Hercules Florence – the unsung photographer of Brazil

It should be noted that in 1833 – six years before the invention of the Danguerreotype method – a very similar method had already been created by French-Brazilian artist and inventor Hercules Florence. While living in a Brazilian village, Florence enlisted the aid of a pharmacist friend, Joaquim Correa de Mello, to develop a method for permanently fixing camera obscura images. In 1833, they couple managed to settle images by using silver nitrate on paper. Florence called the process photographie. Florence was never recognized internationally as one of the inventors of photography, partly because he never published the invention adequately and partly because he lived in a remote location in the South American countryside.

Fixers, negatives and the popularization of photography

After reading about the French invention, British mathematician and optician William Henry Fox Talbot started experimenting to improve the method further. In 1839 he was given an effective fixer from the astronomer John Herschel who had showed that hyposulfite of soda (sodium thiosulfate) dissolves silver salts. Later that year, Talbot created the first glass negative, and by 1840 he had developed the calotype process. Unlike the danguerreotype, the calotype could be used to reproduce positive prints since it used coated paper sheets with silver chloride to create an intermediate negative image. Talbot patented the calotype process and had to spend a lot of time in court defending his rights.

The basic technology used by chemical film cameras today is still the calotype process, but a refined version developed by U.S. citizen George Eastman, the man who invented the roll film and founded the Eastman Kodak Company. Eastman greatly helped popularizing photography by making it less of a hassle and coined the company motto “You Press the Button and We Do the Rest.”

The fish is caught in a nice pose, and the photo is sharp and in focus.
The colour on the Clownfish is nicely highlighted, a lovely photo!

Photo by: Celtic Fins

The use of overhead lighting and fill in flash from the front, set at around half power really captures the fish in it’s full glory.

It is a super sharp shot, beautifully lit with a great DOF.

a photograph anyone would be proud of!
Photo by: Rich311k

The photo was taken at an LFS and considering the lighting in the tank

It is a very good capture, nicely in focus, sharp and with a nice DOF.

Picture by: Celtic Fins

The detail captured is top class and the colours are perfect.

Considering the photo was taken with a regular on board flash it is no mean feat, Sharp, in focus with a great DOF. brilliant shot!

Photo by: kate

- New front page: We have added a new front page.
- Articles: There are now articles on photography and how to take good pictures. New articles will be posted regularely.
- New forum software: The forum has been switched over to Vbulletin which is much better.
- New forum functions: We have added a lot of new forum functions. These will be announced and explained in the forum.

· If you want your fish to look stunning in pictures, you need to provide them with good care everyday – not just the day you feel like snapping pictures. Improper diet, poor water quality, unsuitable tank mates, and a suboptimal water temperature are just a few examples of factors that can make even sturdy fish loose their colours and look dull and listless. There is a difference between living and living well.

· Many species of fish will be particularly photogenic after a large water change, but there are also species that handle change very poorly – even change for the better. Learn more about your particular species and act accordingly.

· If you are photographing aquarium inhabitants, pay attention to the water. You don’t want poor visibility or unsightly debris ruining your pictures. Carry out a water change, make sure the filters are working properly, and vacuum the substrate well in advance – you don’t want to do it right before a shoot since the aquarium and its inhabitants need time to settle after being disturbed.

· Don’t forget the aquarium glass. If you don’t plan on submerging your camera, you need to clean the glass carefully before taking a photo unless you want algae, dirt spots and similar to show for dramatical effect. Also remember that it is not only the inside of the glass that can be dirty.

The Nikon D700 can be described as a compact version of its predecessor the considerably larger Nikon D3. It is roughly the same size as the D300 which makes it Nikon’s first “compact” professional SLR (Single Lens Reflex camera). The D700 has all the features you can expect of a professional model, but it also comes with a very professional price tag – 2,999 USD in most stores in the U.S. (can be found for about 2000 USD)  To put this into perspective, a D3 will set you back 5,000 USD while a D300 costs roughly 1,800 USD on the U.S. market.

As far as imaging goes, the D700 has the same 12.1MP full frame (’FX’) sensor as the D3 and the same processing engine. The main differences between the two models are instead found on the outside; there is for instance no rear LCD info panel on the D700 since the camera is so small and you have to make do with just one UDMA compatible CF card slot instead of two.

The D700 kevlar / carbon fibre composite shutter is good for 150,000 exposures rather than 300,000 and the burst rate is lower (5.0 fps / 8.0 fps with optional MB-D10). Purchasing a D700 instead of a D3 will mean giving up the 5:4 aspect ratio option, and the viewfinder is also different; it’s a 95% coverage 0.72x viewfinder instead of 100% / 0.7x. You will however get the same ultra-fast start-up and shutter lag as in the D3 model.

On the positive side, the D700 does come with some extras not found on the D3, such as a self-cleaning sensor and a built in iTTL flash (G.No 17 / ISO 200). There are Expanded Function button options (you can assign any camera menu item) and the Live View can be assigned to FUNC, AE-L or Preview buttons (allowing LV + different drive modes). Also, the Virtual Horizon can be overlaid on Live View preview image.

The D700 is not only smaller than the D3; it’s also lighter, weighing a mere 1075 grams with battery and 995 grams without. This is almost as light as the D300 (903 g / 825 g) and considerably lighter than the D700 (1420 g / 1240 g). The battery used to power the D700 is a small EN-EL3e and the optional battery pack is the same as for the D300 model: MB-D10. (The extra battery pack will increase the burst rate to 8 fps.)

If you are familiar with the D300 control layout you won’t have any trouble handling the D700 because the two models are almost identical in this regard.

The Nikon D700 will chiefly compete against the Canon EOS 5D Mark II which sells for 2,699 USD at most U.S. dealers and the Sony DSLR-A900 which you can get for roughly 2,999 USD on the U.S. market.

Here are some of the key features of the Nikon D700

• The body is made from a magnesium alloy and all connections and buttons are sealed against moisture.
• The 3.0″ 922,000 pixel LCD monitor has a detailed ‘Control Panel’ type of display and will change colour if you’re taking pictures in the dark.
• 12.1 megapixel full-frame sensor (8.45µm pixel pitch)
• ISO 200 - 6400 (with boost up to ISO 25600 and down to ISO 100)
• Nikon EXPEED image processor (Capture NX processing and NR algorithms, lower power)
• Supports DX lenses, viewfinder automatically masks (5.1 megapixels with DX lens)
• 14-bit A/D conversion, 12 channel readout
• HDMI HD video output
• Multi-CAM3500FX Auto Focus sensor (51-point, 15 cross-type, more vertical coverage)
• Auto-focus tracking by color (using information from 1005-pixel AE sensor)
• Auto-focus calibration (fine-tuning), fixed body or up to 20 separate lens settings
• 5 frames per second continuous with auto-focus tracking
• ‘Active D-Lighting’, i.e. the camera adjusts metering and applies D-Lighting curve
• Scene Recognition System (uses AE sensor, AF sensor)
• Live View with either phase detect (mirror up/down) or contrast detect Auto Focus Picture Control image parameter presets
• Virtual horizon indicates if camera is level

The use of the overhead lighting eliminates shadows and really brings out the lovely blue hue in the finnage.

A nice sharp photo of a very nice Cichlid!

Photo By: Mike (brookfish)