Tips for taking pictures of your Sphynx

[admin]

Do you just put your digital camera settings on "automatic" and shoot away? Generally getting an "ok" picture here and there? If your lucky? If you want a high-quality picture of your sphynx or pet, you will need to take more control of your camera's functions. If you are like me, you have no idea what f-stop is or shutter speed or how about aperture? Any way i thought i would come up with a kind of "amateur pet photographer" tutorial and I will try to keep it simple.

1. Lighting- Lighting is key! Outside photos work best on pets but if your inside try to get extra lighting in darker rooms. Bring a plug in lamp or two to light up that dark room. Try to avoid flash when possible or you will get the "green" or "red" eye.

2. Position- Get down low with pets unless you have an elephant or lion as a pet. Lay down on the carpet or floor in different positions or angles until you get that perfect shot. Always try to focus on the eyes in a photo. Don't be afraid to take a paw shot or half the face with a great whisker shot or in the Sphynx cats case the "broken whisker" shot!

3. Digital camera settings-I will make this as easy as possible for the best "auto" results.

A. Portrait shots- use the "portrait" feature. on your camera it usually has an icon of a persons face. This will focus on your pet and leave the background a little "fuzzy" or "out of focus".

B. Action shots- How about those "tongue out of mouth" shots or the famous yawning cat shots. You want to put your camera setting on the icon of the "skier" or "sports" type icon. This will give you a faster shutter speed for action.

Tip: Never delete photos on your digital camera while you are in the shooting session! what looks horrible on a 2" LCD screen may be a wonderful photo on your desktop computer.

 

[sreams]

Thanks! Great post!

 

[Snowball]

I've always wondered if people have those really special snapshot cameras that I don't have. Not the professional ones that cost over $500, but the digital ones that cost about $100-300, but a really good one that doesn't take about 2-3 seconds to take a picture because it starts to blurr.

Thank you so much for posting up tips. It has helped me a lot!

 

[Emily0404]

Great tips! Thankyou

 

[Embracing-Joyx4]

Thank you...I love taking photos

 

[admin]

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[fuzzy bare]

Do you just put your digital camera settings on "automatic" and shoot away? Generally getting an "ok" picture here and there? If your lucky? If you want a high-quality picture of your sphynx or pet, you will need to take more control of your camera's functions. If you are like me, you have no idea what f-stop is or shutter speed or how about aperture? Any way i thought i would come up with a kind of "amateur pet photographer" tutorial and I will try to keep it simple.

1. Lighting- Lighting is key! Outside photos work best on pets but if your inside try to get extra lighting in darker rooms. Bring a plug in lamp or two to light up that dark room. Try to avoid flash when possible or you will get the "green" or "red" eye.

2. Position- Get down low with pets unless you have an elephant or lion as a pet. Lay down on the carpet or floor in different positions or angles until you get that perfect shot. Always try to focus on the eyes in a photo. Don't be afraid to take a paw shot or half the face with a great whisker shot or in the Sphynx cats case the "broken whisker" shot!

3. Digital camera settings-I will make this as easy as possible for the best "auto" results.

A. Portrait shots- use the "portrait" feature. on your camera it usually has an icon of a persons face. This will focus on your pet and leave the background a little "fuzzy" or "out of focus".

B. Action shots- How about those "tongue out of mouth" shots or the famous yawning cat shots. You want to put your camera setting on the icon of the "skier" or "sports" type icon. This will give you a faster shutter speed for action.

Tip: Never delete photos on your digital camera while you are in the shooting session! what looks horrible on a 2" LCD screen may be a wonderful photo on your desktop computer.

this was a great thing for me to read. I keep trying to get great pictures of Fuzzy. He keeps me intertained and try to catch him doing his stuff, but as you said i do delete before i see them on the computor.

Do you just put your digital camera settings on "automatic" and shoot away? Generally getting an "ok" picture here and there? If your lucky? If you want a high-quality picture of your sphynx or pet, you will need to take more control of your camera's functions. If you are like me, you have no idea what f-stop is or shutter speed or how about aperture? Any way i thought i would come up with a kind of "amateur pet photographer" tutorial and I will try to keep it simple.

1. Lighting- Lighting is key! Outside photos work best on pets but if your inside try to get extra lighting in darker rooms. Bring a plug in lamp or two to light up that dark room. Try to avoid flash when possible or you will get the "green" or "red" eye.

2. Position- Get down low with pets unless you have an elephant or lion as a pet. Lay down on the carpet or floor in different positions or angles until you get that perfect shot. Always try to focus on the eyes in a photo. Don't be afraid to take a paw shot or half the face with a great whisker shot or in the Sphynx cats case the "broken whisker" shot!

3. Digital camera settings-I will make this as easy as possible for the best "auto" results.

A. Portrait shots- use the "portrait" feature. on your camera it usually has an icon of a persons face. This will focus on your pet and leave the background a little "fuzzy" or "out of focus".

B. Action shots- How about those "tongue out of mouth" shots or the famous yawning cat shots. You want to put your camera setting on the icon of the "skier" or "sports" type icon. This will give you a faster shutter speed for action.

Tip: Never delete photos on your digital camera while you are in the shooting session! what looks horrible on a 2" LCD screen may be a wonderful photo on your desktop computer.

 

[Gregory The Cat]

Thanks for the tips! I'm going to try these!

 

[katlinmyers]

Very helpful!!!

 

[KittyGoddess]

Helpful tips. I knew most of it as I take lots of photos and use to model (y)

 

[Silke]

I wanted to add come things
First of all, if you use a flash (even an inbuilt one) use (or make yourself) a diffuser.
It's pretty simple:
1. Flash tends to wash out / overlight the image.
2. You get red (or in the case of an animal: green/blue) eye.
3. It delays taking the shot / freaks the subject out (in the case of burst flash)


This is my Canon EOS 550D. It has quite a powerful inbuilt flash. FAR too powerful for anything close up.
So I make myself a diffuser. It's literally a white (if possible thin / opaque) piece of paper, fixed either side of the flash with a piece of sticky tape. (I use electrical tape, as it doesn't leave marks)
The above were taken with a Nikon Coolpix. (Without a diffuser)
Result?

No "Red Eye", not washed out.
However...

I also sometimes use one of these. It's a 50cm Reflector. It's Paul's, he used to use it for his camera work.
I decided to keep it, as I've used it a few times in the past, and really like what you can get with them.
Here is a good article on how (and when, and why) to use one: How to Use a Reflector

Here is a VERY good article on Flash Diffusers:
How to Radically Improve Your Photos with a Flash Diffuser

I hope this will give the budding photographers some food for thought.

Lighting is the be-all and end-all of photography.