Hiya peeps! I wanna get better a photography so I can take better pix of my snakes and stuff. I'm new to this. Have a read, have a laugh, let me know what u think! I have a ton of questions. Thank u all in advance!




And this is the layout:



The “O’s” are the lights I used, with the red triangles as the light being cast into the light tent.
-- Is the positioning ok from the top view? Where would u place the lights?
-- If the angle, pointing slightly down, ok from the side view?

The “X’s” on the side are just available lights I have that I did not use.
-- Should I use them? Are they necessary?
-- Should they be on the side of the subject/tent? The side walls of the light tent is white and pourous to let light in. Or more light is needed in front?

The blue directional arrows is the area in which I moved the camera to take shots.
-- Does lighting need to change depending on how the camera is held and where?

The squiggly line thing is of course my snake. She was pretty much in the center of the tent.
-- Is this proper positioning?

Anyway this is my gear:
-- 24x24inch light tent with various color backdrops
-- 2 600 Lumen LED spotlights (O’s)
-- I also have 2 halogen lights available (X’s)
-- I am using a Lytro Illum camera that has 8x optical zoom (with a constant f/2 aperture and 1:3 amcro whatever that means).

I got a Lytro b/c I hope to get somewhat good at photography to create living pictures. My other cameras would be the first generation Lytro, a Samsung point and shoot and my iphone.

Also other dumb, noob questions:
What is a recommended, general camera setting for all conditions? (i.e. exposure, white balance, aperture, etc.) should I just keep my camera’s default setting? I just wanna have the camera set to something that would work well everywhere until I get a better grasp on photography.