Photography policy at the Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta

Hi All,

just wanted to let you know that i had queried Georgia Aquarium about

their photography policy, and here is the reply i got from Paul Selby:

Hi Shridar,

No flash photography will be allowed as it will disturb/stress many of

the animals we have at the aquarium. Cameras are allowed. Tripods

are an issue that hasn?t been addressed yet but I know that it would

hinder the flow of traffic if there were many people attempting to use

tripods. There is no area that I?m aware of that you cannot take

pictures though. Hope this answers your questions. Thanks

Paul Selby

Tripod use is restricted in many aquariums and museums for similar reasons, i.e. if someone trips over one, someone might get sued! Since aquariums are often fairly dark, you can see potential problems.

From a practical standpoint a monopod will cause less problems, but of course will also give less stability.

For the most part, flash will destroy your pictures at the aquarium. The thickness of the tank walls just creates too many reflections. Most of the tanks have enough light. They really are too big for a camera's flash to help anyway. In some cases, a camcorder will get better pics because it will work with less light. Some pictures from my initial visit to the aquarium are shown at http://www.djramsey.com/GaAquarium/index_1.html

This is a place to go to for sure, with lots of memory cards or film.

Is there any way to set the white balance to improve the color of underwater photos? If I am not mstaken, water actually removes longer wavelengths of light (sorry, I am a physics teacher doing a light and optics unit right now), so there are actually no reds, yellows or greens left to enhance. Also, the intensity of the blue would increase with distance.

But in general, can you set a custom white balance (digital of course) and improve the color a little? (Bob Atkins, are you reading this?) How much can you do with postprocessing in PS?

BTW, for the last poster who linked to his pictures, they look great!

David Ramsey wrote "For the most part, flash will destroy your pictures at the aquarium. The thickness of the tank walls just creates too many reflections. Most of the tanks have enough light."

David, you couldn't be more mistaken.

I've been selling fish pictures since the early '70s. My pictures of fishes in aquarium have been published in, among others, Tropical Fish Hobbyist, Freshhwater & Marine Aquarium, DATZ, and Das Aquarium. I have won competitions.

I shoot fish only with KM and electronic flash; when I've emptied my freezer of KM, I'll probably move to E100G or RDP III. If you think that available light will do, you're not critical enough.

Thinking of being critical, I've looked at the link you kindly provided. Usual caveats about the impossibility of judging anything from small digital or digitized images. Even allowing for the caveats, I'd be ashamed to show images that poor in public. Ashamed. They're fuzzy and not well exposed. Poorly framed too.

Don't argue with success. And learn a little geometric optics to understand how to control reflections. Every photographer should know how to use flash.