Better fishing photos - 4

Choosing a camera

If you have read the previous articles in this series you should know by now that the camera is the least important thing to consider when aiming to improve your fishing photographs. These days most cameras (even those in phones) are 'good enough' (or can be if used carefully) for most people's purposes - sharing on the internet and making small prints - and even for sending to the weeklies should you so wish.

All that aside, many people want a bit more in a camera, and if you are thinking of using your photos to accompany articles for print based media you might want something more advanced. A discussion on the PAC forum on this subject prompted the following from Eric Edwards:

At the end of the day I'm an angler first and whatever camera I buy has to fit in with that. It has to be light and it has to be compact and I have to be able to do self-takes. They're all essential and I can't compromise on them, the other bits are all negotiable.

All very reasonable requirements, pretty much what any 'serious' angler would want a camera to do.

There is lots of info on the web to do your research on camera specifications, DPReview is the first port of call. You can even compare camera sizes at camerasize.com! I'd still advise taking a look at cameras in the real world as pictures don't give you a true impression of bulk or weight - which can be important considerations if you want to travel light.

So, how do you decide what camera to choose? First of all make a list of the factors which are most important to you, like Eric did. These are likely to include: price, size/weight, ease of use, ability to do self-takes, ruggedness/weatherproofing, picture quality, flexibility, and what you intend doing with the pictures. Put the list in order of importance to you and start your search.

If price is a major concern then it's well worth buying secondhand - particularly if you are considering a more 'advanced' camera. Camera geeks change their gear more often than carp anglers change their rods and reels. As soon as a new model is released there will be people selling off perfectly good (and often lightly used) cameras. (See further down the page for more about buying pre-owned cameras.)

Such is the pace of change in camera technology I'll not be mentioning specific models, but more general types of cameras in this article.The article may also be subject to change over time.

If you need a camera that will withstand the elements then you have two options - a weather, water and shockproof compact, or a top of the range DSLR ( Digital Single Lens Reflex) or compact system camera (CSC). The compact will probably work under water while the other two will be merely weather and water resistant, will require expensive casings to work underwater and won't take too kindly to being dropped! That said, so long as you don't absolutely soak your camera a few drops of rain won't ruin it.

Olympus waterproof compact camera

I used the Olympus on the right as my all-weather camera for a number of years. Even if you have a 'better' camera something small and quick to use like this is handy for keeping in a pocket to snap action shots of your friends or use when the rain is torrential. It's close up facility was handy, and it worked underwater too. The downsides were that it was limited in what it could do other than point and shoot and the flash was particularly useless in the dark. In decent daylight it was an okay camera though.

More versatile compact cameras are available which allow you more control over exposure and focusing. The most popular of these for fishing are the Canon G series. Some of the Canon G cameras have flip out screens, but not all. Check the specifications before purchasing. The G series are almost the same as Canon's bridge cameras. The main differences being the viewfinders and the zoom range. Viewfinders are useful in bright sunlight when screens can be difficult, or impossible, to see clearly.

'Bridge' cameras look a little like DSLRs but are often (not always) smaller and lighter than DSLRs. The viewfinder of a bridge camera is electronic, it's a tiny screen, whereas the viewfinder of a DSLR is optical - all done by mirrors. Both types allow you to see what you are pointing the camera at when the screen on teh back of the camera is overpowered by sunlight.

Bridge cameras don't have interchangeable lenses, but they do have wide ranging zooms. These let you do close up shots and take pictures of distant wildlife without the expense and bulk of extra lenses.

Canon bridge camera

For many years all my photos on this blog and those which appeared in Pike and Predators were taken with the bridge camera on the left. Technology has improved, and today's models offer better resolution and image quality. If you want a flexible camera that is easy to use (it will have an auto setting!) a bridge camera is a good choice. Fuji and Canon are makes I have used and can recommend.

Not much larger than a bridge camera and smaller than a small DSLR, are compact system cameras. CSCs have larger sensors than bridge and compact cameras, interchangeable lenses and some have electronic viewfinders as well as rear screens like bridge cameras do. The larger sensor will make for pictures that are less 'noisy' than those from compacts when light levels are low and flash isn't used. Noise is those speckles of random colour that appear in photos taken in poor light.

There are a few types of CSCs around these days. The most common is the Olympus/Panasonic Micro Four Thirds system which has a smaller sensor than those from Sony (NEX series), Canon (M series) and Samsung which have larger APS size sensors the same as 'consumer' and 'pro-sumer' DSLR cameras, while Nikon's V series has smaller sensor.

Interchangeable lenses are of most benefit when you want to do something specific such as take really close up macro photos or use a fisheye lens. However if you want to get closer than your lens will let you the close up lenses which attach to the front of a lens can be quite useful. They won't be quite as sharp as a dedicated macro lens, but for occasional use they are a cheap option for a camera which doesn't have an inbuilt macro function.

I've found the big advantage CSCs have over bridge cameras are mostly in the sensor - although by swapping the zoom lens for a compact lens of one focal length makes for an even more compact set up. It is the size and weight which gives a CSC the advantage over a DSLR. A CSC with a small lens attached will fit in the pocket of a fishing jacket, a DSLR might - if the pocket is large! Flip out screens are not a feature of many DSLRs, and only some CSCs, bridge and compact cameras. They make self-takes much easier though, so could be a deciding factor in choosing a camera.

Nikon (APS) DSLR  with zoom lens (left) and Panasonic (Micro Four Thirds) CSC with single focal length lens

One very important point, which applies to all camera types, is to carry a spare battery or batteries. This is particularly the case with small cameras which have small batteries that  don't hold a charge for long, and in the cold all batteries run down more quickly than in warm conditions. If it's really cold carry the spare battery inside your clothing to keep it warm.

Selecting a camera to take fishing is a matter of compromise. Listed below are some pros and cons of the various camera types. Please bear in mind that as technology improves the gaps between the various cameras continue blur and close, and that the gap between the top of one range and the bottom of the next will not be as great as that between the top of a range and the top of the next range.

Some Pros.
 
Compact Cameras:

• Small and light.
• Simple controls.
• Often good for close ups.
• Some are shock and waterproof.

Bridge Cameras:

• Reasonably small and light.
• Electronic viewfinders.
• Good image quality.
• Often good for close ups.
• Many have wide range zoom lenses.
• Some use AA batteries.

Compact System Cameras:

• Reasonably small and light.
• Some have electronic viewfinders - or have one available as an accessory.
• Good image quality.
• Reasonable performance in low light.
• Interchangeable lenses.
• Flexibility of controls.

DSLR Cameras:

• Excellent image quality.
• Good low light performance without flash.
• Excellent viewfinders.
• Interchangeable lenses.
• Flexibility of controls.
• Long battery life.

Some Cons.
 
Compact Cameras:

• Limited in low light.
• Limited zoom range.
• Flash power often weak.
• Control options limited.
• Often lack viewfinders.
• Battery life is short.

Bridge Cameras:

• Limited in low light.
• Battery life can be limited.

Compact System Cameras:

• Poor to middling battery life.

DSLR Cameras:

• Size and weight.
• Price.
 

Tips for buying camera gear
If you have a camera shop locally that deals in used gear that would be the first place to look. You'll get to handle the camera and also be able to ask advice. My local camera shop, Wilkinson's, also sells on-line. If you know for sure what you want in a used camera then on-line shopping is an option, but I'd recommend dealing with a retailer as you will get a limited warranty and the items may well be in better condition than described. Two shops I have dealt with for purchasing used gear on-line are Ffordes and MPB.

If you are going to buy new it is worth shopping around. A good price comparison site is Camera Price Buster. There is also the option of importing - but bear in mind customs duty and VAT might bump the price up from that advertised, and warranties might be void on imported items.

Thanks to Wilkinson's for allowing me to take photos for this article in their Southport branch.

NB Camera models and designs change rapidly these days, so this page will quickly become deficient in that respect. Also as time passes, and as technology improves, the gaps between each camera type's image quality and performance narrows.  So if this is being read a couple of years after being written the pros and cons might not be so marked!

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Better fishing photos - 2

Improving the photo

For the first eight years of my digital camera use all I ever did was download the files and then either stick them on a website or this blog when it came a long, or e-mailed them to an editor. No processing on the computer or anything. Since I got a digital SLR camera and more into making pictures I've learned a bit about improving on what the camera throws out. I blogged a little about this earlier, but here I'm going to try and explain (in simple terms) how to make your pictures look better - both on the screen and as prints.

Despite modern digital cameras being so reliable and giving flawless exposures every time there can be occasions when they're electronic brains are fooled. More likely it will be a case of user error that results in a less than perfect photo! Unlike the colour slide film which I used for many years, digital files are quite easily improved when you do mess up. provided it's not a complete fail!

In this article I'm going to deal with a few controls that are available in photo editing software. I guess most people use Photoshop Elements as it is widely known. I'm a cheapskate and use GIMP, which is a free download and does all I need and much more. The two controls which are of most use are Levels, and Unsharp Mask.
But first you have to decide where you will be showing the photos. If you are going to be making prints then you should work on the full size image from the camera in order to retain as much information as possible. If you are going to show the picture on the internet you can reduce it in size. I usually make my photos 800 pixels wide for internet use (although this blog reduces them further to fit the format they can bee seen at 800px by clicking on them). Whatever you are going to use the picture for make a copy of the original file, save it to a new folder and do all your processing on that file. Never save a modified file as the original.

Having made your copy open it with your editing software and find the Levels controls. This provides you with sliders to control the brightness of the light, mid and dark tones which is a reasonably sophisticated, but simple, means of controlling brightness and contrast.

This first picture is a flash shot and there is not much detail in the background. By moving the light and mid sliders around the detail in the shadows can be revealed.

The version below shows how the use of the Levels sliders has made the lighting more balanced and revealed the detail in the background.

The fish still lacks definition. Using Unsharp Mask will give it some punch. Careful use of Unsharp Mask has brought out the detail in the fish's scales and increased contrast a little.

It is better to err on the side of caution when sharpening pictures or the effect will become unnatural looking.That said, when sharpening a picture which is going to be printed out you can go a little further than when sharpening for display on a screen.

There is a third control which can come in handy when photos look a bit 'flat'. Like sharpening it is easy to overdo, but the Saturation slider will make colours brighter. The picture below has had a further tweak to the levels and the saturation boosted to bring out the colours in the wet leaves.

Once you are happy with the result save it as the copy- not the original!

That was a photo which was too dark. I struggled to find one which was too light in my files, so this tench photo will have to do.

It's another flash shot, but this time taken on an overcast day. The sky is too bright and has no detail in it at all, so no matter what I did it could not be darkened. There is a point where no detail can be found in a photo which is very over or under exposed. All you can do is make the most of what is reasonably exposed. In this case it's the important bits - the fish and me.

A fiddle with the Levels sliders, and a touch of the Unsharp Mask filter turned the above shot into the one below. The difference is quite subtle in this case. It's always better to under-do things than go too far and make the photo look unnatural.

Sometimes Levels adjustments can boost colours unnaturally. The solution is to use the Saturation slider to reduce the saturation. Selecting to alter just the red saturation makes the skin tone more natural.

It's not often I need to mess with the saturation, to be honest. Mostly Levels does the job just fine. For a technophobe the Levels and Unsharp Mask controls will make the biggest improvements for the least hassle. There is probably only a handful of photos on this blog since 2010 that haven't had the levels adjusted and some sharpening done to them.

All the above photos were taken as JPEGs (as were all my digital pictures used in Pike and Predators over the years and the majority of those on this blog) and processed as such. However, it's well worth shooting in raw format if your camera allows it. There is much more leeway for exposure, and far more control over the tones available. The same principles apply, though. You are still adjusting tone, sharpness and colour. Messing with anything else isn't really necessary for most purposes.

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Better fishing photos

Introduction

Every angler has a camera these days, even if it's built in to a mobile phone, and there are more and more ways of sharing the fish photographs we take now we are increasingly on-line - even while fishing. Many anglers are blogging, using Facebook and posting on forums. Technology has never made it easier to take really good fish photographs yet still we are presented with out of focus, over or under exposed, poorly composed pictures of fish. Given the advanced state of even cheap cameras today there is no excuse of not being able to take good fish photos. If you have any intention of writing for magazines (paper or digital) you will have more chance of being published if you present good quality photographs to accompany your articles. even if you have no such ambitions it's nice to have professional looking photos to recall memories of great days.

With the hope of helping at least a few anglers take better pictures of the fish they catch I've decided to put some blog posts together on the subject. When they are done there'll be links in the sidebar so they can all be easily found in one place. No doubt I'll miss a few details as I write the articles, and I doubt they will be definitive or exhaustive, but there will be enough information to make a difference.

I don't proclaim to be an expert on photography, I know just enough to get me by - which is all that's needed. If I was an expert I'd probably start off by going through the physics of perfect exposure and then go on to why sensor size and pixel count affects your photos, losing all my readers before getting to the important stuff - making pictures! So I'm going to try my best to keep it as simple as I can.  I hope that by the end of the first part even the most cameraphobic point-and-shooter will have learned something to help improve their fish photos.

Even simple cameras will do a great job - in most viewing situations (computer screens or small prints) their results will be hard to tell apart from the output from a top of the range SLR. In fact this has been the case for a long time. A lot of the photos that were used in my Pike and Predators articles before the digital photography revolution were taken with a 'point and shoot' film camera that fitted in my pocket. The results were perfectly acceptable. After the digital revolution my cameras weren't much more sophisticated and 'only' had a maximum of 6.3 megapixels. Again the results in print were perfectly okay.

Auto focus and auto exposure are nigh on perfect these days. Learning to avoid being the cause of duff photos is really quite simple. More often than not it doesn't involve knowing how to operate all the features of your camera.

Possibly the biggest problem anglers have is a short time to work in. We want to get the fish back in the water as quickly as possible. A little preparation helps here. Keep the camera handy, and leave it set in the way you are going to use it. Then all you, or who ever you hand it to, will have to do is  point and shoot. Part one (below) is about how to do just that.

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Better fishing photos - 1

Taking the photo

Perfectly framed. Thanks Nige!

There are three things that ruin trophy shots. The first is poor framing. There's no need to get everything in the frame including acres of landscape. With digital this is less of a problem than with film as images can be easily cropped on the computer, or even with the camera's inbuilt software. But it's always better to get it right from the start so you have more pixels to play with. The subject of a trophy shot is the fish. So get in close, or use the zoom to make the fish as big in the frame as you can.

Don't get in so close that part of the fish is chopped off, and leave enough space around it in the viewfinder to stop the picture looking cramped, just not so much that the angler looks like he's in the next county.

The second biggest cause of awful fish photos is the light bouncing off the fish into the lens and causing over exposure. This seems to be a major problem when photographing pike as they have flatter flanks in comparison to other species. 'Round' fish like carp and barbel only reflect light into the lens from a small portion of their body, resulting in a highlight usually near the top of the flank. A pike's flat sides become one huge highlight and can result in photos of white pike with no markings. Sometimes this can be corrected at the computer, but if you only want to point and shoot you probably don't want to delve into photo processing.

Imagine the fish is a mirror and get things set up so that the light doesn't bounce directly into the lens. The easiest way to do this on sunny days is to line things up so the sun is behind and to one side of (rather than directly behind) the person with the camera - as in the perfectly framed photo above. Another benefit of having the sun hitting the fish at such an angle is that it eliminates the possibility of the photographer's shadow being cast on the captor and fish - which always ruins a picture.

If the situation prevents positioning angler and photographer in this way, or if using flash when you are pretty much stuck with the position of the light, the angler should turn the fish  in such a way that it reflects light to one side of the lens. Rolling a pike so that its back is slightly closer to the camera than its belly can do the trick, or angle the fish so it's head is closer to the camera than its tail.

Particularly when boat fishing, but also when the angler is on the bank with his back to the water, another problem arises. The camera takes an average exposure reading and the angler and fish become dark. The photo on the left illustrates that. Don't despair.

The built in flash on most cameras is very intelligent. Switch it on and the camera will do its best to balance the flash with the daylight. The shot below was taken a few seconds after the dark one, but with the flash popped up and fired.

If you're wondering what clever settings were used, and what fancy camera, you'll be disappointed to learn that all the pike photos on this page were taken in 2004 with a 3.1 mega pixel, bridge camera set to Program mode. Not state of the art at the time, and ancient technology by today's standards.

Forget any scene modes your camera might have which are supposed to deal with various lighting conditions. They're nothing but trouble in my experience. If all you want to do is point and shoot stick your camera in to Program. If it's dull or dark, or the sun is behind the subject, use the flash. This approach will work well enough with most cameras - even  SLRs. Flash is also useful on sunny days when the captor is wearing a baseball cap irrespective of the sun's angle. The flash will take away some of the shadow cast by the cap's peak.

In this age of autofocus cameras I'm not sure why the third common fault manifests itself, but I still see plenty of blurred trophy shots. Some are the result of the camera missing focus for some reason. I have had this happen occasionally myself but usually because of user error. A quick zoom in on the camera's review screen should reveal any major problem in this department and allow a retake.

Autofocus isn't foolproof. In dull light, and even more so in the dark, it might struggle. Most cameras will have a light that helps in these situations so check it is not disabled. Shining a light on the fish also helps once the sun has set.

All the above applies equally well to self-takes (if doing a self-take in the dark use your head torch angled down over the fish's flank), and unless you want to start doing more than straightforward trophy shots there's no need to get more involved in using the camera's settings than sticking it into Program mode, thinking about the direction of the sunlight and using the flash when necessary. If your camera gives you a choice of focus modes select the one which automatically picks out the object closest to the camera. That should be the fish, which is what you want as sharp as possible.

Another cause of blurred photographs is camera shake. In dull light Program mode might select a shutter speed that is too slow to avoid wobbly hand syndrome and your photos will be blurry. A warning will usually display on the screen or in the viewfinder if this is about to happen. This is a signal to use the flash. The duration of the flash is much shorter than any shutter speed and will freeze any motion your shaky hands might introduce. More and more I'm finding that the flash is useful in fish photography during daylight. It certainly helps in the gloomy days of winter when pike fishing.

There are a few more compositional matters to be considered that will improve trophy shots. Selecting a spot with an uncluttered background helps make the fish stand out. This isn't always possible of course. Whatever the background try to look out for trees growing out of the subject's head, and for other objects that intrude into the picture. Move them if possible, or shift your position to move them in the frame.

This is all well and good if you are the person with the camera. If you are the lucky captor of a big fish, and you are not going for a self portrait but handing the camera to a friend (or worse, a stranger) then it is up to you to set the camera up and get yourself into position so the light and background are favourable. Don't be shy about giving directions to the person with the camera.

The two most common instructions you will have to give will be 'kneel down' - having the camera at the same level as the fish rather than higher makes for more natural looking pictures (unless you are deliberately trying to hide the background!), and 'get closer'. The photo of me with a tench illustrates both of these faults perfectly. If the stranger tells you they know what they are doing and ignores your suggestions you'll soon be purchasing a tripod to do it yourself!

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