What am i doing wrong??

[ericonoahu]

Looks like your white balance is off too.

 

[flyfisher117]

ok thanks all i will try your sugestions tomorow and report back. i kind of want to get this all figured out soon because i am taking a trip to washinton DC and surounding areas and may be going to an aquarium so it would be cool to be able to take some neat pics

 

[kami]

Don't use flash directed at the glass. Either use the available light, or bounce your flash directly from above. I have some aquarium shots at my home laptop and I'll post them up when I get back.

 

[pgriz]

Some basics while shooting through glass (and aquariums): off-camera flash (that gets rid of the flat look), use a high vantage point (as Kami said) - that give a more "natural" look and shadows, use a polarizer (eliminates reflections from the glass), use a tripod and manual focusing (don't expect the camera to know what you're interested in), pre-focus and wait for the fish to move into position, take several exposures and see which ones give you the best over-all rendition, then set that exposure in manual so that your exposure doesn't get influenced by the bright or dark fish moving around. Good aquarium photography isn't easy.

 

[err_ok]

You can get some relatively decent photos of fish in aquariums even without flash, in these I had to whack up the ISO though they weren't letting you use flash...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackregnart/4626082619/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackregnart/4626663310/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackregnart/4626083171/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackregnart/4626082807/

But yeah cleaning your tank may be an idea

 

[kami]

Here's a few pics I took with flash bounced or with no flash. The Jellyfish shot and fishtank I had to bump the ISO up bigtime. These were taken with the D80.

Edit: These photos are also uploaded to photobucket so they don't look as good. (I wondered why they kinda looked a little off.)