Tips for Better Fish Photos

 

Taking better fish photos is possible with a little foresight and planning.

Looking back through my carp and catfish photos for the past several years, I have noticed that most of the best photos were taken on cloudy days. The softer light on cloudy days makes it easier to take great fish photos.

On sunny days finding a bit of shade near a tree, building, or other structure can help lessen the effects of too much light that creates unsightly and undesirable glare and highlights on our photo subjects. This is easier at some fishing venues than others of course. 

On a river bank, there are often no trees, no buildings and no shade to be found. In those conditions it helps to increase shutter speed to something like 1/500ths or 1/1000ths or  use a higher F-Stop. These settings are easily identifiable on a digital camera, but can be illusive when using a cell phone camera. 

Experiment with your cell phone's settings and find the menu for adjusting exposure. In bright sunlight, less exposure (higher F-Stop) is helpful. In bright sun, F16 or F22 works well with ISO 200 or ISO 100. Since fish are stationary when we hold them, we get greater detail at lower ISO. Higher F stop enables lower ISO.

Some additional tips:

• Position the sun behind you when taking the photo
• If it's really bright, experiment with taking the photo with the sun to one side
• Avoid standing too close to your fish and creating a shadow
• Iron all of this our before you catch your first fish, experiment for different times of day
• And of course, it's much easier if you have a tree nearby for shade
• If you end up with glare in your photo, experiment with filters to reduce glare and highlights
• Having a plan before you catch the fish-of-a-lifetime can help capture a better photo
• Sometimes using a vehicle as background works out well too (dark colored vehicles work best)

Here's a link that is helpful: Digital Photo Tips