Techniques and tips for taking a good picture of you and your big fish (continued)
 

Lighting and Positioning: This is probably the most important subject in photography. Understanding lighting will surely ensure your fish pictures will always come out good. I’m not going to give a full lighting course here but will point out some important dos and don’ts for taking pictures with a digital point-and-shoot camera.

Buzz positioned with directional lighting and good background for that great photo with his big fish of the day, an eight pound steelhead

Do take advantage of the good lighting in the early morning and around sunset hours.
 
Do take off the hat. Hats create shadows on your face.

Harsh lighting is not an ideal condition for taking good pictures

 
Don’t shoot in harsh lighting (i.e. bluebird days with the sun directly overhead). Move into the shade if the lighting is harsh.
 
Do turn your subject to face the sun or at least to some angle so no shadow is present if you cannot move into the shade. If you want to take silhouettes put the sun behind the subject, focus, and make sure the flash is turned off.

Bad positioning and lighting produces bad pictures

   
Don’t use flash especially when your fish is white or silver, such as a stripped bass. The flash will usually blow out the highlights and your fish will not show any details and appear flat white. If you do have to use fill flash, decrease the flash output intensity.

Though the flash filled in the shadows on Zander's face, the flash was too intense and blew out the highlights on the striped bass. Reduce flash intensity or shoot completely without flash after better positioning your subject to eliminate any shadows on the face

  
Do position your subject with a nice background if possible. If not, you might try setting your aperture to a lower setting to blur out the background for a more stunning effect.

Diffused light, such as through fog or clouds, is always good for pictures. What we want to illustrate here is fish positioning. The fish on the left isn't actually held to show off its best side. On the right the Lingcod looks much better showing it's wild patterns on its body

 
Do turn and position your fish on its best side. Sometimes we see people, especially first time fishermen, hold the fish and it’s only showing the belly or top. The fish looks much more attractive when photographed on its side view.
 
Do snap more than one picture, and don’t be afraid to look at the LCD to make sure you got the picture you want. If not, adjust the settings and snap again.

Bad lighting and the hat created a huge shadow on the face