Fish in water as photography object

Hi Vic,

You are not to blame for that photo not looking very inspiring. The background of pebbles and stones is so complex and coloured that it will dominate any fish you photograph swimming over it. You say that the water is not deep, so you don't have a chance to make it sufficiently blurred to isolate the fish.

Most of the picture is out of focus because you were shooting at aperture f/5.6 with an 180 mm lens. Your depth of field will only be a few inches. Stopping down to the required f/11 or smaller isn't really an option because you were at ISO 2000 already and a longer shutter speed would leed to camera shake. DOF would be improved (increased) by shooting with a shorter focal length, but you would have to get closer to the fish.

Not that that would leed to great improvement because the background would still spoil your picture. Only solution is to look for another place where the water is deeper or the creek bed is sandy instead of stoney.

Here is a picture of mine. Not that it is that great, but you at least don't see the ground (nor that much of the fish).



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