Mastering Summer Fishing Photography

How many fishing photos have you seen with an awkwardly-posed angler, poorly focused on fish, and an overall low-quality to the shot? For fishermen, too many photos often fall into this category. In the thrill of the moment, it can be hard to remember to take a quality fishing photo, as the rush to show the fish off, put it on the stringer or release it, and keep one's self from being bitten all lend to a hurried picture, poorly capturing the epic moment of success. You don't need to be a professional photographer armed with $2,000 DSLR camera to truly capture some amazing fishing photos. Even a $100 point-and-shoot digital camera with 5 megapixels and 3X optical zoom can take extraordinary photos, in the hands of good photographers. Try out these simple tips for creating quality memorable fishing photographs today!

Variety
Photo after photo after photo of the same angler posing the same way with different fish gets boring really fast (take the average bass angler's photos for an especially glaring example of this problem). Instead, take photos from different angles and catch different moments of the excitement. A trophy shot doesn't have to be Bob the Angler lifting up his bass to the camera. Sure, a few of those are fine, but try taking some as the fight progresses. A shot of Bob making his first cast of the day, over mist-soaked waters is awesome. Bob setting the hook on his third fish (get the awesome "bendo!" photograph), or Bob leaning down to lip his 5lb largemouth bass. Get focused shots fish too, not just trying to show the entire length of the fish for the bragging board. Even a close up of just the fish's head, eyes, fin, etc is great and really sets a fishing trip album apart from more generic ones. Net shots are great too, with the focus on the fish in the net, sometimes right as the angler is scooping them up.

Close-up
Almost every digital camera, even the lowest-end ones, comes with a mode called "macro." If you aren't familiar this setting, look for the little "flower" icon on your digital camera. It may be inscribed on a button (as it is on my Canon digital camera), or might be under a menu option, accessible on the screen. Turn on this setting, then, without zooming in, take a picture of the fish. You won't need to (in fact, DO NOT) use the zoom in feature on the camera when in Macro mode. From my experience, you can't effectively use the macro feature along with zooming in, you'll just throw off the close-up focusing. To get close to the subject without zooming in, physically move your camera, while on macro mode, up close and personal to the fish. Some of my favorite photos of fish are not of their entire length, but rather of their face, catching the strength and determination in their eyes, so wild and fierce. Other cool ones to try for are the with the angler holding the fish (with wet hands to ensure the fish's protective slime coat is not damaged) horizontally, pointing it in your direction. Used correctly, the macro mode should pick up a close up of the face of the fish, and go off focus on the angler and the body of the fish, a cool effect used on fishing magazine covers routinely.

Action shots
It can really hard to catch the amazing leaps, jumps, swirls and splashes that fish reward anglers with during a heated battle, even with excellent optical zoom and a fast shutter speed. To make up for this, once your buddy hooks a good fish, start taking pictures immediately. Take lots of pictures! Remember, SD card memory is cheap and you can always delete the ones that you don't like. Memories with quality photos aren't cheap at all. The more pictures you take, the better chance you'll have that they will turn out great. If you feel confident messing with the manual settings on your digital camera, look into adjusting the shutter speed so that you can catch the action of the fight vividly. Alternatively, you can just use the built-in "sports" or "party" mode to catch the fishing battle in photographs.

Solo Anglers
Don't have a fishing partner with you when you catch that lunker bass? No worries. Purchase a Gorrilla Tripod ahead of time and use it, along with the timed photo mode, to catch great trophy shots of your own fish. This takes practice, but can be done with relative ease after a while. I usually use the ten second timer option for such posed photos. Also, you can still take excellent close-up photos and fish photos even without the tripod. Tight lines!