This was Difficult!

This is Lamprichthys tanganicanus. a killifish from Lake Tanganyika in East Africa. I photographed it in a special photo aquarium in my house. The photo was taken with a Nikon D750, F16, 1/60 sec, ISO 200, exposure bias -0.7 steps. I used a 60mm Nikon macro lens and 2 off-camera flashes. The fish is about 2" long.

The photo aquarium is a 7" wide x 6" tall x 2" depth, 4-sided glass box. There is no top or front on this box. This box is placed inside a filled 10-gallon aquarium, the back third of which is heavily planted with live aquarium plants. The aquarium filter is in a back corner, behind the plants and not visible from the perspective through the photo tank. The photo tank is held against the front of the 10-gallon aquarium with magnets. Leaving the front off the photo aquarium means I only shoot through one pane of glass. In this case, one flash was placed above and in front of the fish while a second flash was held in the left hand, angled in front, slightly above and behind the fish. This flash is meant to rake along the flank of the fish to emphasize the scales. The camera is held in the other hand to follow the fish as it swims in the photo tank. The fish needs to be away from the edges of the photo tank, and in this case, parallel to the front glass.

What makes this photo particularly difficult is that Lamprichthys is a fragile fish. If caught in a net, it goes into shock and may die. It also does not ship well. The eggs, however, are relatively sturdy and take 2-3 weeks to hatch. I bought some eggs at an aquarium fish convention, brought them home, and raised several fish. It took about a year for this male to fully mature. The females are plain tan in color. I then scooped up the fish in a plastic bag and gently poured it into the photo tank. After a short acclimation period, I was able to capture this photo. Once I had gotten a good photo, the photo tank was taken out of the 10-gallon aquarium, the fish was scooped up in a plastic bag again and returned to his aquarium.

I shoot in RAW so there is some post-processing in Photoshop. In this case, the photo only needed cropping and adjustments to contrast, color, brightness and slight sharpening.