One Way of Photographing Guppies

Photographing guppies can be a challenge. I found that water movement and the resulting swiming activity is a plus when taking pictures of guppies.

I built this contraption which is basicaly a 8in x 8in x 1.5in chamber with a background. Using a powerhead, I pump water from a plastic container, on top of which, this unit is placed. Water pours out of an opening on the top right. I found I have to use a long handle leaning against the opening to help water trickle and aviod splashing. I use a platic aquarium background. I tried a balck background, but the glass acts too much as a mirror. This background is less of a problem. To use black, I would need artificial light and a black hood of sorts to over the set up and photographer to dampen all the light. That way one would be able to direct the light in such a way as to aviod glare. Maybe the background would need to be on the inside to reduce glare as well.
This background however gives surprisingly good results. I use a sony digital camcorder, which also takes still photographs to take pictures. I am not used to my Nikkon Coolpix. I need to sit down and figure our manual focusing and depth of field on a macro setting. What I do is zoom in a little (within the optican zooming range of the camera), and let the camera auto focus. It is not perfect, but it is a start. I use photoshop, but try never to adjust color artificially. Sometimes I play with brightness and contrast, or sharpen and unsarpen mask, and the immage size function. That is all. And I try to be as conservative as possible.

These are some of the pictures I've taken in the last month or so. I am going ot keep tweaking what is it exactly what I do until I am happy with my use of the camera. But as far as a set up for photographing guppies, this one works great.

F1 from one of John T.'s original males and either John's albino females or Christer albino females.	same
Albino F2's	F1 and F2 males
F2 female	F2 male
I am particularly interested in the structural differences between the double sword varietie photographed here.	For example, this variant has a sharp outside edge, but the inside edge is not sharp at all, and ending on a point.
F2' from Annett Wolf's Japan Blue Double Swords	Same fish, just a little older.
Annett Wolf's F2's here in Seattle	JApan Blue (annett Wolf) F2 Female
F2 from John T.'s strain	same
F2s John T.'s strain here in Seattle	same (about 4.5 months old)
F1 male	F2 male (young)
"Hybrid" Coreal Red male x Snakeskin Female this picture has been adjused to enhance red color	F1 roral red (ray and albino) on the sunlight. They look more orange than red.

Now, one can improve on the design of this unit. I am having one built ouot of plexiglass (acrylic). I want to be able to direct some of the water flow skiming though the bottom of the chamber so that the fish gets up into the water column as soon as possible after placing him in the tank. Plastic can be drilled easier and plumbed just the way I like it. If it works better than my first prototype, I might have a few built and give to a couple of my friends for them to try out.