I spent yesterday afternoon at Rod Buehler's place, home of Rod's Food. In addition to making great reef food, Rod raises several species of clownfish and has a breeding pair of Bangaii cardinals. He raises Bangaiis, too. For those who don't know about Rod, he's rather well known in Illinois, at least for his Black Onyx clowns.
Rod has two Stichodactyla gigantea anemones, each at least 18 in. dia. and each home to a pair of Black Onyx clowns. If you want to read more about the anemones, read this article.
Yesterday's effort was to get shots of the clownfish using two flash units. One was my usual fish-shooting setup. That's flash on the hot shoe, head angled at 45 deg. and a white card attached. The second flash was mounted to the side on a tripod, aimed into the water at an angle and set in slave mode. The box tanks are already lit by a 400-W MH lamp. The two flash units helped considerably because they gave me more DOF and a faster shutter speed, allowing me to better freeze the ever-in-motion clownfish. I have to work on the technique, though, because the second flash was creating a tremendous number of air bubble and debris reflections that, on the photos I kept, took forever to clone out. I need to experiment in particular with the positioning of the slave flash.
Nonetheless, here are some shots that worked out rather well. The pair that live in the green anemone were within just a couple of hours of laying eggs and very focused on cleaning the tile on which they lay eggs. I had hoped to witness/photograph the process, but ran out of time.
Gary
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Rod has two Stichodactyla gigantea anemones, each at least 18 in. dia. and each home to a pair of Black Onyx clowns. If you want to read more about the anemones, read this article.
Yesterday's effort was to get shots of the clownfish using two flash units. One was my usual fish-shooting setup. That's flash on the hot shoe, head angled at 45 deg. and a white card attached. The second flash was mounted to the side on a tripod, aimed into the water at an angle and set in slave mode. The box tanks are already lit by a 400-W MH lamp. The two flash units helped considerably because they gave me more DOF and a faster shutter speed, allowing me to better freeze the ever-in-motion clownfish. I have to work on the technique, though, because the second flash was creating a tremendous number of air bubble and debris reflections that, on the photos I kept, took forever to clone out. I need to experiment in particular with the positioning of the slave flash.
Nonetheless, here are some shots that worked out rather well. The pair that live in the green anemone were within just a couple of hours of laying eggs and very focused on cleaning the tile on which they lay eggs. I had hoped to witness/photograph the process, but ran out of time.
Gary
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