Favorite photos 2013 - A Real Showoff

[penolta]

Lion Fish. A reef fish with venomous spines - very dangerous. Showy but deadly. (Edit: see comments three posts below)

Taken at the Aquarium of the Pacific, through glass, hand held, available light.

EXIF Summary: 1/125s f/5.6 ISO3200 50mm (35mm eq:75mm) SONY NEX-5R

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[vsch1]

What a fabulous marine animal. captured well!

[mtngal]

I like it very much! The one time I visited that aquarium I really struggled. Your shot is excellent - perhaps I should try again one of these days (I have a different camera and lens combination that might work better than the several I tried before).

[penolta]

Thanks for the comments.

Harriet, the Sony Nex 5R has incredible low light performance. I took about 200 photos (really snapshots due to the crowded conditions) and discarded about half as unsharp due to movement (mine or the subject's) or out of focus, not a bad average, considering the conditions. Most required only a little sharpening and/or despeckling to remove or reduce background noise.

This fish is not what I fist thought it was (a juvenile Red Lionfisn, Pterois). There were so many school kids crowding the place I couldn't read the labels (although I think this one just said "Lionfish", which is is not.) It is in fact an unrelated scorpionfish, Dendrochirus brachipterus, a "Fuzzy Dwarf Lionfish". Dwarf Lionfishes are sometimes called "Turkyfish", probably for the resemblance of their broad fins to the spread tail of a turkey. Dwarf Lionfish are sold in pet stores andare popular with marine aquarists. True Lionfishes are also Scorpionfish, and most Scorpionfish are venomous.

Internet image of D. brachipterus from 3reef.com's Lionfish Lair:

[selvin]

Great work, and know what you speak of when you commented on sharing the spot with crawling crowds.