Some pretty nice fish photos here, if I do say myself. Took some time to finally dust off my camera again and enjoy a day out and about rather than inside studying. I've been to the Aquarium of the Pacific before, and I remember being particularly disappointed with the experience. This trip was far from disappointing, and I really appreciated the variety of sea life as well as the obvious effort that went into curating the individual exhibits.

I was especially glad to have my circular polarizer on hand for this trip. On top of filtering out the glare from the top of the water on my sting ray shots, it proved handy in reducing some of the reflection when I found myself shooting through glass. I actually had to throw out a few ray shots because the water just looked too clear and the resulting diffraction was distracting. There were times when I just didn't have the extra light to spare while shooting indoors and through glass, and my solution was to be particularly aware of any reflections and try to reposition myself to avoid them as much as possible. One helpful hint: I wore a white shirt to the aquarium... When shooting in situations where glare could be an issue, wear a black shirt to prevent a little more reflection.

I might have tried to use a flash to improve these shots by pulling off a little catch light in some of my subjects' eyes, but I was a bit annoyed with all the people who were blinding everyone else with their point-and-shoot camera flashes. A quick cost-benefit analysis led me to decide it wasn't worth being the source of further frustration. It was poetic justice to listen to one tourist complain about her camera being broken because she kept getting a big white spot in her pictures.

Finally, this was my first shoot using my Lowepro Slingshot 100AW as my new camera bag. I didn't have to do any quick lens changes or stash my camera away for too long, but it holds all of my traveling gear comfortably and safely, and sits surprisingly nicely for a sling bag. I don't really have enough experience with it to justify recommending it, but this was a good first experience.