Birds eye view: do you take top-down shots of your reef?

[Peace River]

Birds eye view: do you take top-down shots of your reef?

We normally view our corals, fish, and entire reef from the side, but top-down views can be stunning! What is your experience with photographing your tank from the top? In addition to enjoying the beauty, have you discovered any other benefits such as observing things that you wouldn’t have seen from the front such as new growth or potential areas of concern? What equipment do you use for your top-down shots? Do you prefer shots of specific corals or full tank top down shots? Please share an tips or questions that you have in the following discussion thread.

Photo by @maroun.c

If you are interested in learning more about taking top-down shots of your aquarium, you may want to start with this R2R article on top-down reef photography. Also, you can check out the Photography section on Reef2Reef.

 

[blaxsun]

No - my fish splash to darned much...

 

[exnisstech]

I have to turn off too many devices to get the water still and hope the tangs stay out of the way to take top down shots. I will say that a lot of fish look different top down. I had fish in a stock tank on the basement floor for a couple of months once and totally enjoyed the view and the way the fish would turn sideways to look up. Now I know why blue green chromis are named that. They are blue when viewed from above. I would love to have tank that the top is at waist height.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I'd have to turn off the light and a few other things to get a proper shot

 

[Smite]

I build my aquariums with top down viewing in mind. It's my favorite way to enjoy my tank. I have a tall sided viewer I use made by Eshopps. It's large enough to fit my phone. I cant set it in there and take pictures no problem.

I use a Avast Marine Porthole for my DSLR shots. With acropora it's the only way to see all the details.

 

[Spicy Reef]

When done "right" (hehe) top down is amazing like the shots above. I'm too short to get those views w/o a ladder

 

[vlangel]

My tank is a 56 gallon column. It's 24" high so between that and the stand height I cannot even see from a top down view without standing on a chair or step stool, LOL.

 

[ScubaFish802]

I do but they don't look as good as the ones above lol

 

[fish farmer]

I don't have a lot of space above my tank since the tank was put into a existing "window" in my wall. Lights are close, so I get glare. I can only fit my phone in to take shots and they are close ups, no option of full tank shot from above.

I can do angled shots.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I take top down tank photos using a submersible camera - great for reflective mantle shots of tridacna.
Jay

 

[Dburr1014]

Without a submersible camera or portal it's really hard.
I always get reflections from the lights. Try to move and the reflections follow me. LOL

 

[swervinscoot]

Every time I service the tank I have to take one or two. It’s a 125g with 3 RS50’s

 

[i cant think]

I absolutely love top down photos and I’ve been designing my nano to be best viewed top down.

 

[scardall]

 

[TheDuude]

I take my screen top off, shut off all flow, and observe the tank from above at least once a week. It's amazing how much even "Ultra low iron" glass distorts the corals color. Also good to look for dead spots with detritus build up.

Attached a top down of the fireworks but always seem to get pretty bad reflection of the led pucks on the water surface.

Any photography SMEs with some advice for this?
I guess I could just crop it out.

 

[MtnDewMan]

I loved top down shots on my previous reef tank.

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

 

[Smite]

I have a piece that looks like this, called silly string. Does this have a trade name?

 

[c_healy]

Yea. I made a couple top down viewer boxes for mine and my daughters tank too. Top down view is awesome.

 

[Reefer Matt]

You mean there's another way?