Heads or Tails – Shooting through water

Shooting through water can give you some very nice or very blurry images depending on what you are shooting, with what and how close to the surface your subject matter is.  Oh, and how clear the water is; the clearer and calmer the water the better your chances are.

You don’t need any particular equipment to shoot with but I would recommend a longer or even zoom lens.  You want to focus on the one thing you want in your composition as well as have a better chance of capturing it; a wide lens won’t get you close enough, possibly, to your subject.  And as with photographing anything, steady hands always help.

Here at the Franklin Park Conservatory there is a very serene koi pond with beautiful fish swimming leisurely about.  As there are only a couple of spots around the pond where you can get a good clear spot to take your photo.  That is providing there aren’t a lot of other visitors surrounding the pond; little children love this part of the conservatory.

For this shot I waited until some of the bigger fish swam very close to the side of the pond and using a 90mm macro lens, I took my shots when the fish were closest to the surface of the water.  Sometimes you get lucky and get a clear or pretty clear shot of the fish in all their beautiful color and sometimes the lights and other things (like a sudden tail flip) cause ripples in the water or reflect off the fish and the water.  In the later case I find that converting to black and white makes the image work better.

But most importantly, don’t drop your camera when shooting near or over water.  That is not fun at all!  Do you like shooting objects that are under water?  Have any tips? Do share.

Teri 📷

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