Please take this in the spirit in which it's intended. First of all, FTS are difficult to shoot.
Neither photo is in great focus. It may simply be the distance you're shooting at, the camera may be trying to focus on the glass panel, you need to use a tripod, or a combination thereof. I'm not the photographer Renee is, but I can tell you that she never uses a flash, and ALWAYS shoots from a tripod...ALWAYS (unless it's a quick "no time for a tripod" snapshot). As far as the focus is concerned, most cameras have a focus detent on the shutter release (you hold it halfway down, let the camera focus, then release the shutter). If the camera is trying to focus on the glass, try going slightly off angle so the focusing signal won't bounce off the glass, but rather off of your subject.
If your camera has an aperture-preferred mode, stop it down a bit (higher F-stop). This will improve your depth of field. The trade off is that the camera will shoot at a slower shutter speed (there's that tripod again!).
On the subject of focus, when shooting pix of fish, make sure that the eye is in focus. This is where the viewer's eye is drawn to first, so if the eye isn't crisp, it doesn't matter how good the pic is.
To be honest, the first pic without the flash has much better color saturation and detail. You need to get an image that isn't washed out (your flash image is losing detail and color). That way, you have room to adjust the basics using a photo processing program...Photoshop, Paint Shop, etc. Another problem you can have with a flash is having it reflect back into your lens, which makes a big , bright dot in the pic. FWIW, none of the pix I recall us posting were shot with a flash.
Finally...electronic images are free, so shoot several shots if you can at different angles and settings, then get a feel for what works with your setup in a given situation. I can't tell you how many shots most good photographers go thru to get "the one".
HTH
and I have tried every setting
