PlanetCatfish.com

I have spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to get decent pictures of my fish. I have now settled on using my Canon 300D wioth a Macro twein Lite MT-24EX, which adjusts the light automatically, but also allows me to set the balance between the two flashes, and change the aspect from which the light comes. I am far from an expert on this, but I am pretty happy with the results. The corys are reasonably easy to take photos of as opposed to some other cats.

Corydoras aeneus

[img:1080:552]http://members.shaw.ca/bslindgren/Photo ... erbai6.jpg[/img]
Corydoras sterbai - you may see a scar on the one to the right as well as some dorsal fin damage, that I think have been caused by one of my Synodontis eupterus (see photo under African catfishes)

Nice Cories!

Your from Prince George....cool!

CL

hmmmmmm

from the pic of the "sterbai" you have posted i would be mor einclined to think that they are are C.haroldschultzi than sterbai. this assumption is made of the length of the body that appears in the pic that the not so distinctive spotting that is displayed by C,sterbai. any chance of more pics at all?

nice corys non the less

From the Cat-eLog for

The spots on the head can be used to differentiate them: C. haraldschultzi has dark spots on a light background, whilst C. sterbai have light spots on a dark background.

bslindgren wrote:I have spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to get decent pictures of my fish. I have now settled on using my Canon 300D wioth a Macro twein Lite MT-24EX, which adjusts the light automatically, but also allows me to set the balance between the two flashes, and change the aspect from which the light comes. )

I have that flash and find it excellent. Have you tried manual setting, increasing ISO and using a tripod. It all helps greatly. Nice pics.

Sp00ky wrote:hmmmmmm

from the pic of the "sterbai" you have posted i would be mor einclined to think that they are are C.haroldschultzi than sterbai. this assumption is made of the length of the body that appears in the pic that the not so distinctive spotting that is displayed by C,sterbai. any chance of more pics at all?

nice corys non the less

They do appear a bit "long" or "thin" (not sure which, really). My C. sterbai do appear a lot more "stubby".

But I do agree with Dave R: The picture shows the characteristic head pattern of C. sterbai.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:

Sp00ky wrote:hmmmmmm

from the pic of the "sterbai" you have posted i would be mor einclined to think that they are are C.haroldschultzi than sterbai. this assumption is made of the length of the body that appears in the pic that the not so distinctive spotting that is displayed by C,sterbai. any chance of more pics at all?

nice corys non the less

They do appear a bit "long" or "thin" (not sure which, really). My C. sterbai do appear a lot more "stubby".

But I do agree with Dave R: The picture shows the characteristic head pattern of C. sterbai.

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Mats

it may just be how the pic is taken. They patterns can be so variable in corys that i tend to look outside of the markings to make a positive id these days

The orange-yellow trim is C sterbai specific. Many tr C. sterbai show truncated bodies these days. It is even more prominent in albino C. sterbai. They are becoming very inbred. I am not generally worried about a little inbreeding but this has been going on for years in farms and they are not abstaining from breeding those with truncated bodies.

Corydoras sterbaimales tend to look thin, even when in tip top condition, females on the other hand when in breeding condition are quite plump.

The colour pattern is distinctive, especially on the head and is in fact opposite to that of C. haraldschultzi. You could liken it to a negative and a print.

Ian


C. sterbai male. Image courtesy Corydorasworld.com

[img:400:263]http://corydorasworld.com/var/news/stor ... _large.jpg[/img]
C. sterbai female. Image courtesy Corydorasworld.com

[img:500:285]http://corydorasworld.com/var/news/stor ... _large.jpg[/img]
C. haraldschultzi female. Image courtesy Corydorasworld.com

I think it's the angle that I took the shot at that make them look somewhat thin. I have posted another one here that shows the fish shape better.



Re the photo settings, I use manual setting with the aperture set to get good depth of field, automatic point focusing to ensure that the focus is where I want it, and an f-stop that is fast enough to not blur when the fish are mving. The flash does the rest, although you have to make sure that you have the ratio correct and the flash units pointing where yopu want them. The picture above has the light from the left, when it should really have more from the right, for example. I'm still learninmg this stuff and the beauty with digital is that you can shoot away forever - no wasted film and immediate feedback. Evenm imperfect pictures (in terms of exposure) can be made acceptable with photoshop.