Many of us hope to capture a decent photograph of our catches along the way and a decent camera is common place in the anglers tackle bag these days. Whilst angling fish pictures have become somewhat easier with the advent of digital photography, the pit falls of handing over your camera to a local dog walker and getting things wrong are still there! None more so with self-take photography and night time photography can the end result disappoint. However, combine the two together and out of focus or bleached out results can be the unfortunate end product and you have only yourself to blame!
I found myself fairly happy with my auto setting, point and shoot results from my Cannon bridge camera but found self-take, night time shots a bit hit and miss. Indeed, a big eel night time self-take last year left me in despair when viewing the results on the computer a couple of days later.
When shopping with my good lady last year and wanting to avoid losing yet another 15 minutes of my life in the next faceless shop, I popped into the local London Camera Centre high street shop next door. I explained to the nice fella behind the counter the issues I had experienced and that I simply wanted decent night time, bullet proof self- take photos holding a wet fish about 6ft away from the camera lens with the camera set on Auto.
The recommendation was move away from using the inbuilt camera flash and try the permanent continuous LED lighting of the Manfrotto Lumie LED lights that fit in the hotshoe mount of any camera. Convinced, I walked out with the tiny Lumie Play hidden in my coat and entered the shop next door to tell my good lady I was merely window shopping and had she not spent enough money on clothing! I jangled the car keys wanting to go home (like you do)
There are three sizes of the Lumie light available: the smallest is the Lumie Play that features three LEDs, while the medium-sized Lumie Art has six and the largest, the Lumie Muse, has eight. As you might expect, the bigger the unit the more light power it’s capable of outputting but I guess for close up fish photography the small Lumie Play covers our needs. The Lumie series has a Li-Ion battery that recharges via Micro USB. This is a big advantage, as the unit is more convenient and considerably smaller when compared to similar AA/AAA battery-powered models. However, it’s worth noting the rubber plug to protect the micro USB is not attached and is very easy to lose.
On the bank the unit has proven effective, lighting up the captor and the held fish enabling the camera to focus really well. The over exposure of white bellied fish is minimized providing more consistently decent photographs than produced with the inbuilt camera flash. The small footprint of the Lumie Play still allows the camera, remote and spare batteries to fit in a small waterproof box and kept in the side pocket of most decent rucksacks. Additionally, the Lumie will act as a spare torch should one be needed. All in all, a product well worth checking out if you feel your night time shots could be improved.
