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

2 Tips for Taking Better Carp Photos

Here are two simple ways to ensure the hard work, sweat and money you spend carp fishing pays off with a good quality photo of you favorite captures.

• When taking self-posed carp pictures, remember to present the fish square to the camera. 
• If you really want to be conservative and ensure a nice photo, tilt the head slightly closer to the phone camera than the tail.  

For a good example of what happens when you don't follow that guidance, refer to the photo below. Unfortunately, I missed an opportunity for an average photo to be a really good one.

Fishing alone can be challenging, and in this example I was getting so many runs that it cut the time for photos shorter than I would have preferred.

Fins Up Carp Photo

I caught this mid teens carp recently

I love it when the carp, camera, lighting and my ability to correctly pose a fish while keeping all those variables in check come together to achieve an intriguing photo like this one.

I have found that rather than taking photos in direct sunlight, it's best to find some shade. The shade helps filter out some of the harshness that causes fish to turn "white" or become "blotchy". I have developed a huge dislike for "blotchy" photos recently. But best of all, they are entirely preventable with some prior planning (and a little luck).

More Photo Editing Examples

It's so tempting to edit all the fish pictures that are taken. Sometimes I convince myself that a tweak or two will make a difference, but I am not always right. The two photos below help demonstrate the downside to "over-editing" a photo.

The edited photo has been cropped slightly and the lighting was adjusted to make the fish brighter.

I like the original photo much better than the edited version. The edited photo looks "fake" and even slightly out of focus. The original photo may have been out of focus, but in the original photo it does not stand out and is not as noticeable. The editing emphasizes the lack of focus even more.

On a mobile device, the edited version appeared acceptable, but in the larger format of the laptop or desktop, the photo suffers quite a bit.

Edited photo

Original photo

This appears to be a clear case of "too much of a good thing" actually creating an undesirable result.

I think the photo stands on it's own without any adjustments to the lighting. The photo seems to stand on it's own in hindsight, but if I did anything to it at all; I should have cropped it slightly and be done with it.

Photo Filters to Improve Carp Fishing Pictures

I have been playing around with a photo filter app I found on Google Play Store. Here are a few of my first attempts with it.

Small mouth buffalo with the lighting improved significantly compared to the original cell phone picture.

The filters allowed me to remove most of the green from my John Deere sweatshirt and highlight the fish to a greater degree.

My current personal best common carp at 29 pounds and a few ounces

I will always love it when I catch multiples

Those pictures were some of the photos I experimented with when learning to use the tools available via Photo Filters in Google Play Store.

I have continued to use the application the past few days on various photos with mixed results. I have noticed that photos which look great in the smaller format provided on a mobile device (e.g. cell phone and tablet) tend to distort when viewed on my laptop.

I will keep using the Photo Filter app to "clean up" photos I post on Facebook, but I think editing those photos posted to the carp fishing blog need to be edited in a larger format on the laptop.

Another point worth noting about the free app is that from time to time when you open your cell phone to use it, Photo Filters sometimes displays unprompted advertisements that require me to "exit" them in order to use my phone. I don't really mind it at this point, because the "pro's" do seem to outweigh the "con's". I will, however; continue to be on the look out for a photo filtering app that works even better.

Making Better Photos of Your Big Carp

I took a lot of grief for this picture. Linda caught the fish, but she isn't comfortable posing them for the camera. I held the fish so she could get a picture of her 24 pound personal best catch, but I didn't do the fish justice.

Opportunity

 

 

A few people on one of the fishing forums actually questioned whether we were fudging on the weight a little bit. Of course not, but after studying the picture a little bit I do understand why someone might wonder.

 

I had my fingers too far forward and they distracted from the size of the fish. Some find the background a little distracting as well. A nice background draws the eyes to the fish and not the peripheral items in the picture like the van and pick-up truck. The lighting is also a little off. A quarter turn toward the sunlight would have put more light on the front 1/3 of the fish which is where most of the mass and size comes from. It's not something I paid much attention to until that day. Most of the time catching the fish was satisfaction enough, but I need to improve.

 

For the remaining part of the fishing season I tried to pay more attention to a proper pose and I did get better at it.

 

Better

The fish in the second picture is much smaller, but my fingers are farther back and it allows the eyes to focus more on the fish and not my fat fingers. One thing though about this picture that would have improved it much more - some water to rinse off the fish and to clean up the blood around the lips.

The background is better than in the top picture, but there is still room for improvement.

I started keeping a small amount of water near the unhooking mat. It helps clean up the fish and aids recovery time for the fish too. It's very important on hot summer days as well to wet the mat a little before laying a fish down on it.



Almost there

Although not perfect yet, this picture is better in my opinion. The background and lighting are much better; and I am almost happy with the position of my hands and fingers. But I still need to work on how to position my hand near the rear of the fish.

My biggest fish in 2 seasons of fishing for carp weighed 26 pounds, but I'm hopeful to hook a 30 pounder this season. When I do I hope I don't ruin the picture by an improper pose that fails to do the fish justice when photographed. A proper fish deserves a proper photo to memorialize the moment.

I am not saying my way is the only way and it's definitely not the best way, but hopefully it will help you consider ways to improve your own fishing photos this season.