Heros severum "rotkeil" Fry

Heros severum "rotkeil" fry

Well, we are aquarists and this is the MCH Portal, so why not add fish pictures in this section? The most remarkable thing on these pictures is that this fish hatched from the egg only 24 days ago. These small cichlids only measure about 7 to 8 mm so I needed an 1:1 macro photo to get a decent image of them. Of course it's nearly impossible to shoot them in a 60cm deep tank as they constantly swim up and down and in and out of focus. My decision to install a small filter increased my success rate very much though. The little fish seem to feel very safe in the small gap between that filter and the glass, so they stay in this hide-out frequently, which buys me time to frame the fish, let the auto focus do it's job and gently press the shutter and obtain a very good picture! These fish are tiny, especially when you compare them to their 20X bigger parents, but you can see that their body structure is complete. Pigment spots on the body are already there and the pattern of stripes of the parents is also visible. The funny thing is that you can see the spine and bones in the body that is still transparent.

Photo by Frank Panis

Shooting Data:

Camera: Nikon D70
Lens: Tamron SP AF 180mm f/3.5 Di Macro 1:1
Sensitivity: ISO400
Shutter speed - aperture: 1/500sec - f/20
Flash: SB-800 straight on the camera without diffuser
Image: RAW, converted in Nikon editor, sharpening low, autocontrast without colour change, cropped, denoised with Helicon, then opened in PS7, resized to 1200 pixels wide, added USM, saved in JPEG.