Again, a bit monochromatic, but when you're taking pictures of a white cat... I need purple curtains and orange cream cheese. That would liven it up. If you're not familiar, the post title is from a popular silly-captioned-animal-picture web site called I can haz cheeseburger?.
9 comments:
At least you *can* photograph a white cat. My black cat is nearly impossible to get a good photograph of. If she's lit enough to see any facial features, she's got her eyes closed because it's so bright.
drfaixr
My in-camera lighting gauge does get a little wiggie with Yeti. I generally turn it down a full stop before I believe its reading. Perhaps upping yours a full stop would help. Another thought, what's your fastest ISO or lens? Maybe you can avoid the big lighting thing -- or tripodding (what a verb) the camera while he's still and sleeping.
Quite definitely a challenge. Now I'm going to have to find a black cat and experiment -- photographically. I used to have a dark cat, so I have all dark clothes. Now I have a white cat and look like a crazy (white-) cat lady.
Last sentence in the first paragraph -- read "she" rather than "he"
I can go to 200 ISO with f2.6. I have tripodded her to some success, but as you point out, you only get sleeping shots.
The exposure is one thing, but you also have to manually focus, I've never had an autofocus get her without freaking out -- even canon AF, which I think is the best, can't find her easily. I usually have it focus on something equivalently distant.
aubvt
Does your camera have a "little finder flash"? That helps me in low light / low contrast situations. But I think auto
Another thought, do you have a diffuser or reflector ( a crumpled piece of aluminum foil works great!)? You might be able to make the light less strong or set it up over a favorite sleeping place and "pre-focus" and lay in wait.
And my current last thought, I use a ring flash for Jasmine, since her eyes are generally very sensitive to light and easily red-eye. It's so fast, the first shot, I catch her with her eyes open. That or no flash with up to 1600 ISO. Your fast lens will help a lot.
Oh... something else, my ring flash and some of my others have intensity adjusters. I have also affixed rubber band and small translucent piece of a gallon milk jug to my pop-up flash. It's way cheaper than the (minimum) $20 professional thing.
Hah, I said 200 ISO... I can get up to 1600. Once it's up that high I have to go B&W to get pleasing pictures. If I back it down to 800 I can get usable color shots.
I can go with the ring flash idea, I suppose. The finder flash always makes her squint. I really need a shot faster than a cat can blink and that's really fast. I may go with the ring.
ysdtn
I've done a lot more 1600 ISO since we got Jasmine. It was one way that she would actually have her eyes open and I wouldn't get the reflection of her retina through her iris. It's like mega-red eye. It does take some getting used to, and I agree b&w definitely makes it a "style".
I do like all the experimentation that can go into different types of photography.
Here's the best shot I've taken of her. This was with a tripod while she was sitting still on a chair. Allowed me more shutter-open time.
My kids in glorious B&W (1600 ISO).
And here they are fast and in color (200 ISO).
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