Cat Photography

hi,

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• doreet
• Feb 21, 2015

 I would like some nice close-ups, but I don't want to use flashbulbs. How hard is this going to be? Nevermind, I just want advice about cameras and what other people have done. My cat is so darn PHOTOGENIC, it's terrible, she's a beautiful Burmese four-year-old Kitty, big blue eyes. That I can post her picture here.like I said above, I haven't done photography for many years. Thanks very much.

Hi Doreet, welcome!

There is no "best" camera, there is only what is best for you.  You need to go into a store and get a feel for what sits in your hand best, where the controls are, etc.  Are they easy for you to get to?  Does it feel good ergonomically to your hand? Some people have smaller/larger hands than others so this will matter.

Then, if just beginning again don't spend too much at first.  You can get a very decent Nikon or Canon for only a few hundred dollars if you want a DSLR.  This will come with a lens in most cases, which is perfectly acceptable to start off with.  

I have a Nikon D3200, one of their less expensive, but still high pixel models. I did purchases a couple of extra lenses because I felt comfortable enough to do so.   I used to do film photography years ago, and also was transitioning into the DSLR. Although I'd used smaller types (an ELPH for instance), learning this format is still a learning curve for me.  Read the manual, take lots of shots.  Play with the settings.  Don't buy a separate flash yet - most of the time you won't need it if shooting in daylight.  You can compensate greatly for lighting and moving objects (cats!) by adjusting your shutter or the aperture.  

Photography is all about your vision, if you can compose a shot well you're half way there.  If you can get decent exposures, even better.  But if you have no vision no matter how perfect your lighting is, it's still going to be an uninteresting photo.  

Do research for a while, don't jump in until you're pretty sure you know what you want.  The only thing I regret about my purchase was not getting one step up, which would have gotten me a tilt screen.  I really didn't realize how much easier some shots would be to capture with it, being as I have issues being able to bend at the knees.  

EDIT: BTW, I actually do most of my cat photos using my cell phone.  Yes, I do.  I get great photos off of it, and have several editing apps which allow me to crop effectively and adjust whatever problems the picture possibly might have.  Again, if you know how to take a good photo, the type camera isn't going to matter as much.  I'll post a couple of examples later.  I'm using my Chromebook right now and copying/pasting/loading photos is a bit challenging on it

I second the recommendation for a rotating and tilting LCD screen, you can get much more interesting angled shots without contorting your body! That along with a good feel in the hand, and a good versatile lens are most important to me. I prefer what they call "pro-sumer" cameras. More than a pocket sized point and shoot, less than a full-on digital slr with many lenses. Tiny cameras feel too clumsy even for my small hands, big lenses on heavy cameras are tiring to use and cart around.

I like to take a lot of photos of birds & insects so a good optical zoom and macro are needed. I dislike using the flash normally also, so a "fast" lens with good low-light auto focus and good appearance at higher ISOs is also important to me. I settled on the Panasonic Lumix FZ200 a little over a year ago and have been very happy with it. Prior to that I had a Canon Powershot S1 IS and the S3 IS for around 10 years. I was pretty happy with them as well and considered another Canon, but the Lumix FZ200 lens won me over. It is fast with a constant 2.8 aperture for the full range of the 24x optical zoom. It is kind of unheard of and to have a lens with that range on a SLR camera, it would be very large and heavy.

It is taking a lot of getting used the different Panasonic controls and menus after using the same Canon system for a decade. The performance is greatly improved though, especially in low-light situations. The manual that came with the camera is kind of a joke though. There is a British guy on You-tube name Graham Houghton that made a ton of tutorial videos for this particular camera and many others that are really helpful. Oh, and he also covers the full 1080p HD videos you can take with it.

I think there is a newer version of this camera now as well. Prices are all over the place. When I got it, it was $400, but I have seen it as low as $200 around Black-Friday and as high as $600 other times.

Good light is as important as a good camera to get good results too. If you take night-time pictures or your house has dark walls and furnishings, windows always covered with heavy curtains, etc.... it will be more difficult to get good results. I recently got a 2 foot round pop-up interchangeable diffuser/reflector for like $10 that I think will help with difficult lighting a lot.

The trend now for most is just using their cell phone for photography since it is within arms reach at all times....for many people. I am not one of those people. I have an el-cheapo phone that is usually turned off and in my purse! Newer ones can take pretty good pictures though, you just won't have all the options like you would on a regular camera.

I use my Galaxy S 4 phone. I did at one point have a DSLR camera, and may get one again. However, I find that my phone for this moment works well. I prefer posed/studio shots. I have a mass supply of muslin and such backdrops, plus props for all kinds of things, holidays and occasions. But realistically, I find my cell phone works great. It has automatic controls I can set it on, and I do have a couple of lenses that I can attach but they don't work well, so I never use them.

Here are some recent pics

I recently did a Valentine's Shoot with her (will do saint patrick's soon)

This one, I had a white muslin blanket set up, and left roses, hearts, etc on it for a few days. I just let her do her thing, and caught her when she was naturally there.


This one was taken  I got very close to her, no flash. I then put it in Black & white, and post processing did a selective colorization in my photo program


Once again, leaving a "setup" for the cat can help, then catching her/hm when they go to it


and finally, you try to catch them in the moment. This was actually taken on a whim , this one was taken as is, point and shoot with my cell phone (no extra lenses) she was sitting on top of my printer and the wall and outdoor lighting worked perfect. This one is a 20 x 30 print in my den.

sivyaleah  has a very good point that modern smartphones can take great pictures, and apps such as instagram can transform images into really nice pictures. The plus side is you are more likely to have your iPhone on you to capture that special moment.

I have a fixed prime 50mm lens on my Nikon DSLR which creates wonderful depth of field pictures, and its great for low light photography.

furry said:

 
sivyaleah  has a very good point that modern smartphones can take great pictures, and apps such as instagram can transform images into really nice pictures. The plus side is you are more likely to have your iPhone on you to capture that special moment.

I have a fixed prime 50mm lens on my Nikon DSLR which creates wonderful depth of field pictures, and its great for low light photography.

Click to expand...

I mostly use Snapseed for post processing.  I have others but that on has fantastic editing tools.  You can even work on small parts of the photo solo, make the background blurry, only brighten one side of something, etc.  Also has a ton of filters.  I've been playing with VSCO also, but it isn't as user friendly.  I usually push them through to Instagram afterwards.  That's something else I miss about the camera I bought - as it turns out, having a wireless feature would have been awesome.

Snapseed sounds good. I also use Afterlight, Aviary and Mextures which are good for getting really creative!

I use Avery also.  I'll have to look up Mextures.

I thought of one other feature that is invaluable for shooting basically anything that moves...burst mode. That is when you hold down the shutter and it fires of a sequence of pictures rapidly. I almost always use 5.5 frames per second with continual autofocus, but it also has 12 frames per second with the focus locked on the first exposure. Using burst mode you are much more likely to get that special shot with a moving subject.

Totally agree about burst mode, and they even have that feature on smartphones now, should you have a fairly new one!