Fishy Photography

I was asked to photograph some pet fish in a fish tank.  A pair of cichlid inmates had spawned a batch of young and were protecting them from all the other fish who were circling around eyeing off the delicious babies.  All very simple except for one thing.  The fish tank was set up inside the house and the subjects were hiding in a decorative barrel which meant supplementary light was required and that it had to be directed into the barrel so they could be photographed.

"Easy" you might say, "Just position the flash to direct the light into the dark space."

Well, after dialing down the flash power to minimise the shadow and remembering we are shooting fish in a fish tank, we then have to deal with the reflections off the glass.  Not an easy task.  There were already reflections of the room, the windows, myself and the camera even before the extra lighting was added but after many attempts and contortions, I finally replaced the flash with a desk lamp to achieved this one.

Canon 7D and 24-105 f4 Lens, Manfroto tripod.  Lighting was provided by a bright desk lamp.
1/50sec @ f11,  ISO 800