Shooting Cat Pictures

We've all seen photo's that suffer from a bad case of "red eye"....in the case of a cat, it is closer to "green eye" since cats have different pigments in their retinas.Â:censor: This results from having a flash unit too close to the camera lens.Â:censor:

About cat eyes…
With cats, the retina has a special reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum that acts almost like a mirror at the backs of their eyes. If you shine a flashlight or headlights into their eyes at night, their eyes shine back with bright, white light.

About human eyes....
Humans don't have this tapetum lucidum layer in their retinas. If you shine a flashlight in a person's eyes at night, you don't see any sort of reflection. The flash on a camera is bright enough, however, to cause a reflection off of the retina -- what you see is the red color from the blood vessels in the eye. Eeeeew!

Strictly my opinion but not necessarily so in all cases…
The best way to capture a decent cat shot is to move closer to the subject. Use an external flash if possible. With point and shoot cameras with a built in flash...use the red eye reduction feature and turn on as many house lamps or overhead lights as possible. Personally, I turn my Auto Flash OFF and use as much house lighting as possible - natural light has given me the best results overall…

I tell ya what!!!! Once you master shooting pictures of cats you can take great pictures of pert' near anything! LOL!!

>^,,^<
Kim

Wow! and I just take a lot of pictures until I get a few good ones! Thanks for the tips.

Interesting, concept and I bet your right. Happy snapping!

Patty

I've also found to try to get them looking not quite directly at you/the camera (especially if it's not brightly lit) is the best way to avoid the demon-kitty pics. If I'm not taking candid pics, I snap my fingers out to the side to get them to look slightly away from the camera and snap away, flash and all. For those of us with black cats, flood the room with as much light as possible: natural, artificial, flash, whatever. Using just the flash in a darker room will get you a black furrball with big eyes, but no definition of what kitty really looks like.

Of course, Kim is the real expert of pics and photo editing.

Valanhb - ever get this effect when a cat looks directly in the lens....


It's so wierd—here's an example of the ghost like effect that happens in the eyes when a cats looks directly inot the lens... Now, with this picture, I had to edit the eyes by removing the "Film" over the entire eye... This shot didn't require too much work—Basically - I selected each eye and adjusted the "Yellow" channel ....

It's really amazing to me that cats reflect light in this manner more than any other animal.... LOL! Do I sound Geeky or what?
:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Geeky no! I've come to the same conclusions myself, through trial and error. I much prefer to take shots with my 35 mm in natural light too. The digital camera is used mainly for fun & convenience.

"green glow"

Ooooooo Narciss I love all of the eye!!!! That is such a cool pic!

Kim

Kinda freaky isn't it? LOL

Kim...thanks for the tip! :tounge2: I just got my digicam today, so of course you KNOW what I will be doing all night!

I look forward to seeing tons of pictures!

Jeff24Girl: Uh Oh! You know you have to share double, now. LOL!! Can't wait to the baby pics!!!!!

Kim

Yes I am looking forward to posting pics of Jedi more frequently, here and on my website as well!

Developing and scanning is SUCH a pain the the butt. I LOVE technology!

Buy a digtal, I just got a Hp photosmart 320 at office max only paid 149.00 It takes great pictures and you can fix the red eye before you print it,no scanning!You also fix the red eye before you save it.then you re-size it,on the same page very easy,if I a newbe can do it everbody can!!

It's a cute little digital camera. My friend has one for her eBay auctions...it's perfect for web images.
Hey sherral46, just curious- you mentioned correcting red eye before you print or save—did you mean correct red eye before shooting the picture? Because printing then saving would be done in the same application.....Does HP offer software to manipulate the images ?


>^,,^<
Kim

I have a Canon IXUS V, it's so tiny but takes great pictures. It comes with inhouse software(from Canon) which is pretty good. Nothing beats a good art program for editing though

I think it's really nice when they give you software with these cameras....my Aunt got one and it came with absolutely zippo software. Poor thing got aggravated think she's taking it back to Office Max...that's why I was wondering about that HP the sherral46 posted... She paid about the same price. My Aunt is 76 and needs Extremely User Friendly Software—heck she's still afraid of the mouse on her computer..LOL!

Kim

Yes, the software lets you do thing. I save most of my pics before I send them.I like to make sure my pic come out right so I save and edit before I send. The hp software has a red eye touch up.

Narciss, you should enter that 'green glow' in the 'Caption This' forum. It's a great picture!

You think so? I have entered a few pics (after being told I should) but none of them have been posted. Maybe I'll try this one too and see what happens. thanks