The Kuwait Scientific Center (KSR) is a great place to observe a world that most of us will not get to see otherwise. It has one of the largest aquarium tanks in the middle east, plus various other smaller tanks that host a variety of sea life.
KSR is located on the Gulf Road, just after the Sultan Center, Salmiya.
For a photographer (with the right equipment), it presents a great opportunity to take pictures of an underwater world. Flash is pretty useless here (and is actually prohibited as it disturbs the fish), but that does not stop all the excited visitors from happily clicking away with their point & shoot cameras, and then wondering why their photos are not coming properly. Of course, a flash will reflect off the glass resulting in over-exposed pictures, and the picture will have a big blob of light in the middle, where the fish is supposed to be.
What you really need is a camera that can operate at high ISO, and a fast lens. When I say fast lens, I mean "really really fast"!. For this picture, I used the 50mm F1.8 prime lens, with the ISO bumped upto 1000, and the lens opened wide to its maximum aperture of 1.8.
The Nikon D70 is not a stellar performer in handling noise once the ISO goes beyond 800. I had to use Neat Image Pro to reduce to noise and apply some post-processing in Photo shop to bring out the details in this picture.
My ideal combination for shooting here would be...
A Nikon D200 with a 85mm 1.4 lens. Alas, I can afford neither at this present moment.
hi there...
ReplyDeletei love Kuwait Scientific Center too.. it's amazing, however, sometimes i get this urge of killing annoying ppl and little kids that take away the pleasure of observing and enjoying sea life :)
nice info about photography :)