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Small grammar/spelling tweaks for readability.

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edited Oct 17, 2017 at 22:33

What's the technique to take pictures of sea livelife at the aquarium, while avoid usingavoiding flash?

I was at the Monterey bayBay aquarium, and their exhibits are awesome.

However, I found it quite challenging to take pictures with my Olympus EM-10 Mark II.

I happened to rent the 60mm macro, which came in handy. However a couple of things made it real challenging:

The thick acrylic seems to do something optically... I had the best luck making sure I shoot perpendicular to the surface. If I shoot off 90 degrees, I had little hope of getting the focus right at all.
The 60mm macro was capable of f2.8, but the aquarium is still generally quite dark. I had my ISO up at the 800-1250 range, but that's still around 1/50s shutter, which isn't necessarily fast enough to freeze the subjects.
f2f/2.8 also havehas a pretty shallow depth of field, so I may have to stop down to get the whole creature in focus, which feeds into the lack of light option. Focus stacking is generally not an option because the subject moves, and I'd have very little hope of aligning them.
Some of the exhibits explicitly banningban flash photography (totally understandable), so using flash, even if I can arrange to avoid reflection, may be a no go.

What else could I do to maximize my chances of taking sharp, reasonably good pictures?

I was at the Monterey bay aquarium, and their exhibits are awesome.

However, I found it quite challenging to take pictures with my Olympus EM-10 Mark II.

I happened to rent the 60mm macro, which came in handy. However a couple of things made it real challenging:

The thick acrylic seems to do something optically... I had the best luck making sure I shoot perpendicular to the surface. If I shoot off 90 degrees, I had little hope of getting the focus right at all.
The 60mm macro was capable of f2.8, but the aquarium is still generally quite dark. I had my ISO up at the 800-1250 range, but that's still around 1/50s shutter, which isn't necessarily fast enough to freeze the subjects.
f2.8 also have a pretty shallow depth of field, so I may have to stop down to get the whole creature in focus, which feeds into the lack of light option. Focus stacking is generally not an option because the subject moves, and I'd have very little hope aligning them.
Some of the exhibits explicitly banning flash photography (totally understandable), so using flash, even if I can arrange to avoid reflection, may be a no go

What else could I do to maximize my chances of taking sharp, reasonably good pictures?

I was at the Monterey Bay aquarium, and their exhibits are awesome.

However, I found it quite challenging to take pictures with my Olympus EM-10 Mark II.

I happened to rent the 60mm macro, which came in handy. However a couple of things made it real challenging:

The thick acrylic seems to do something optically... I had the best luck making sure I shoot perpendicular to the surface. If I shoot off 90 degrees, I had little hope of getting the focus right at all.
The 60mm macro was capable of f2.8, but the aquarium is still generally quite dark. I had my ISO up at the 800-1250 range, but that's still around 1/50s shutter, which isn't necessarily fast enough to freeze the subjects.
f/2.8 also has a pretty shallow depth of field, so I may have to stop down to get the whole creature in focus, which feeds into the lack of light. Focus stacking is generally not an option because the subject moves, and I'd have very little hope of aligning them.
Some of the exhibits explicitly ban flash photography (totally understandable), so using flash, even if I can arrange to avoid reflection, may be a no go.

What else could I do to maximize my chances of taking sharp, reasonably good pictures?

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asked Oct 16, 2017 at 16:56

I was at the Monterey bay aquarium, and their exhibits are awesome.

However, I found it quite challenging to take pictures with my Olympus EM-10 Mark II.

I happened to rent the 60mm macro, which came in handy. However a couple of things made it real challenging:

The thick acrylic seems to do something optically... I had the best luck making sure I shoot perpendicular to the surface. If I shoot off 90 degrees, I had little hope of getting the focus right at all.
The 60mm macro was capable of f2.8, but the aquarium is still generally quite dark. I had my ISO up at the 800-1250 range, but that's still around 1/50s shutter, which isn't necessarily fast enough to freeze the subjects.
f2.8 also have a pretty shallow depth of field, so I may have to stop down to get the whole creature in focus, which feeds into the lack of light option. Focus stacking is generally not an option because the subject moves, and I'd have very little hope aligning them.
Some of the exhibits explicitly banning flash photography (totally understandable), so using flash, even if I can arrange to avoid reflection, may be a no go

What else could I do to maximize my chances of taking sharp, reasonably good pictures?

low-light macro-lenses