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Photographing Your Fish
How many times have you rushed down to Boots to put your prize pike pics, in for processing. You march up and down trying to make that hour go quicker, then you get them and you open up the envelope and they are all wrong you have had your head cut off and frankly that fish just doesn't look as big as it did on the day.
Well, your stuffed, you asked the wrong person to take the pics for you, never mind. I am never satisfied with the pics I get back, as I never took them.
The Camera:
There are 4 main different cameras out there. There is a Polaroid, Compact, SLR, and Digital. Yes I know there are more types and different formats but I am trying to keep it simple.
Polaroid: This is ok if you just want a pic for identification of the fish but not for showing off a prize catch. You get a 4" by 4" pic, but you get it in a matter of minutes of taking it.
Compact: These are good little cameras, they are small and can be idiot proof but idiot proof means it will give you correct exposure, it doesn't mean it won't cut peoples heads off, if it is not pointed in the right direction. But the modern compacts give good quality and some have a zoom.
SLR: well this is my choice for a camera, you can change the lenses and you have much more control of the end result. If you know how to use a camera then you can take advantage of the manual settings and if you don't, use the auto settings. I personally have a Cannon 50E and this does all that I need.
Digital: Well these cameras are coming on in leaps and bounds and are just getting better all the time. The only thing, to get a good one you will need a fat wallet. You can view your pics as you take them and you can download them straight onto your PC.
Light is what makes pictures, It is the light
that reflects off of objects and goes through the lens and hits the film. They always
said the photographer should keep the sun to his back, but I like to use a
little bit of flash and this takes out the hard shadows around the eyes and
softens the picture a bit.
The lens is the most important part of the camera. The better the quality of the lens the better the quality of the pics. The lens comes in angles, the smaller the number the wider the angle and the bigger the angle the bigger the zoom. The angles are shown as mm = millimeters. As shown here. The 50mm lens is the same as what your eye sees.
Another thing is the wider the angle the further away the background looks and this can help make your fish look bigger, clever hey, lets face it that is what it is all about making the best of what we have got.
It is important to have the camera set up and to treat it like your net, it should be ready before you put your baits in if you intend to take pictures. This is because the sooner you take the picture the sooner you get the fish back to the water. The pikes health and welfare must be of the up most importance to you! So the more you practice the better off the pike will be.
So to make your pike look bigger and better this is what you need to do, you need to get on one knee and hold out the fish straight out in front of you about 18" - 24", tilt the head up slightly higher than the tail. Then the magic you need is a wide angle lens, a 24 - 28mm is best. An every day compact has a 35 mm lens and that will do, if your compact has a zoom lens just zoom out instead of in . Now with the fish held out the photographer must get in as close as possible to the fish. You must fill the frame with the fish, with only inches to spare. Just make sure you don't cut any of the fish out. This will make the fish look big in the frame and the person will look smaller as you will look further away.
This was just don on my web cam with a ruler so imagine what you can do with with the right camera and a nice shiny 20lb or even a 15lb pike.
Here are some other examples
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| This was a 6lb Jack | A 22.8 lb that looks like a 27lb |
This can show the lenth |
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on
07 / 06 / 00
