Let's see 3 days of shooting and over 500 photos - only 2 meet the requirements for composition and sharpness. It is damn tough to capture a fish in high detail for even when the 'appear' still they are moving at a crawl that a close-up will catch - thus not as sharp as I want it to be.
First try was indoors next to a window. Just not enough light - got some great shots with the fish curled or swooping in the moon but not sharp. Damn.
Next day, took tank out to porch, a bit better on lighting but still nothing that would hold razor sharp details.
The last attempt I took the fish out in a new larger tank and was outside my house. I lay on my belly for 1.5 hours and got a nasty lobster red sunburn on the back of my legs for my trouble. But I got two that passed muster. Didn't like that I had to bump up ISO to 800 to get the clarity and I should have upped the shutter speed for it was a tad overexposed. The other downside is the DOF was such that I lost all the lovely details of the textured black paper in the backdrop (same textured paper as seen in my Zen photo - "Floating")just to get the details on the fish and the moon in the forefront.
And I don't know how bloody hell that NEW, FRESH clean water put into the tank could have so much crap floating in it when you do these close-ups!! It looked so crystal clear to start....of course over the course of an hour or so the beta is making a mess and me dipping my finger on the water's surface to push the food pellet into place where I want him to go may have contributed to the water not looking so crystal clear pristine.
Lastly the title is one I am struggling with - wanted it to have a 'zen' quality but also either allude to the Japanese story of the carp/fish turning into a dragon or the Chinese myths that have the dragon chasing/swallowing the moon.
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