Recent Vancouver Aquarium Photos
 

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ohh, very very nice. I love the Octo! I have never seen her out (although I did have the honor to shake hands with one while SCUBA diving locally a month or so ago).

Great shots. What camera and lens were u using?

Very nice shots. Plenty to be proud of there!

nice camera skills! if it weren't for that stupid lady in the background of the octo pic... well at least you found her out. It's frustrating telling visitors that there really is an octo in there... she's just really good at hiding. Fantastic emerald tree boa pic too; my fave snake at the aquarium.

There are a lot of tropical reefs with a lot less colour than the west-coast has. It is too bad that keeping cold-water is so much more complex than warm water.

Matt, cold water tanks are actually generally simpler to maintain if you do it right and often MUCH cheaper than a SPS tank. The problem is livestock. not many people have cold tanks so suppliers dont collect for them, and because suppliers don't have cold livestock, hobbyists cant set up a cold tank... it's a vicious circle. but there are a few ways out of it.

Very cool pictures, thanks for sharing :biggrin:

The photo of the sponge crab is my favourite, I would love to keep one of these guys.

Fabulous pictures!!

Did you have to use a tripod for some of these?

Very cool thanks for sharing.

Very cool! Thanks

Thanks for all the comments guys!

I'm using a nikon d80, and most of these shots were with the nikkor 50mm f1.8, but I think one or two may be with a sigma 28mm f2.8

Nope, didn't bring a tripod. Some were taken with the camera braced against the glass/acrylic or braced against the frame of the viewing panel. This allowed me to use the longer than usual shutter times.

Every shot made me say 'wow!'. Well done...I've never taken any good photos there and I have the same camera and lens lol.

Do they have any seahorses or sea dragons?

ahah I never even noticed her until I read this... Peace... ahah loser!

vaporize, there are H. reidi sea horses, bred at the aquarium. There are also ribbon sea dragons (technically a pipefish); both captive bred and the originals from another public aquarium (I want to say Boston?)

Really? Wow, I'm impressed. I noticed the shutter speed on the octopus shot was 1/3s ... I would never be able to hold a camera still enough freehand, and it's perfect clarity in the picture, the octopus didn't even move in that time ... totally impressed.

Do you have a remote for shutter release then? Even the act of pressing the shutter release gives me a tiny bit of camera shake, anything slower than 1/30s is pretty much a gamble for me. ..

So, any tips you could share? :lol: (Pretty please?!)

... And I feel oblivious, I don't see the lady in the background of the octopus shot. I stared and stared .. must be missing something .. I'm going to go look again now ... :redface:

Oh .. the blur is her hair maybe? I thought it was an out of focus part of the aquascape or something. :lol: Honestly, all I see is the octopus. Lady in background or no it's a good shot.

The lady in the background is making a victory sign. I was going to clone it out in PS but got lazy :P The octo shot wasn't actually freehand per say. I rested the on the concrete frame of the viewing window and held it firmly in place. You can also hold the lens against the viewing panel firmly to achieve this kind of stability. Something you might want to try next time you need to shoot really slow is the 2 second timer on the shutter. This will fire the shutter 2 second after you press it so that the button pressing will not move the camera during exposure.

This is a good tip... I'll have to try it. With my crappy little camera I need all the tips I can get

I used to do that trick with my old 35mm. To show what a complete tool that I am though, I can't find out how to do it with my current digital camera (mine is the D70s). I tried googling the info but all I could find was wireless remote shutter controllers. :neutral:

Tony, there is a button by the top LCD to change the shutter settings on the camera. One of the settings is a timer, but to set the timer duration you have to go into the shooting menu (i think).

does anyone know how old octo is? how long has the aquarium had this guy?