How do you get such nice pictures of your herps??

[Powerspythons]

I have seen some really amazing pictures on this site and I want to take some of my own to share but I dont know of its my camera, the lighting, the background or what is making them look so poor...so please tell me how I can get pictures as nice as you all!!! Please??

Thanks,
Greg

[BuckeyeBalls]

I have seen some really amazing pictures on this site and I want to take some of my own to share but I dont know of its my camera, the lighting, the background or what is making them look so poor...so please tell me how I can get pictures as nice as you all!!! Please??

Thanks,
Greg

One thing that really helps is the all white background. Like the white board stuff u can buy.

Me i use a left over piece of melamine to get my all white background.

Then other then that u need a good camera that isnt a point and shoot and know how to use it

[SlitherinSisters]

It doesn't really take a lot of money to get nice pictures. My camera is a point and shoot, but most decent point and shoots have a lot of options so you can take some really nice pictures. My camera is almost 3 years old, it's a Canon PowerShot 790 IS. I think it was $250 back then, so today you could buy a much nicer camera for that price.

I use melamine as the floor, and white poster board as the background. I can adjust the brightness of the flash on my camera so that helps a lot. Once I get the pictures taken I adjust the lighting a bit with a photo editor and erase any imperfections on the floor and the line where the melamine meets the poster board if necessary.


If you want tongue pics you need to have it on the fast setting, usually sports or kids and pets. (this picture was also on macro-notice the close up is clear and the background is fuzzy)


And for close ups you want the macro shot, on many cameras it's the 'flower' setting. This will make the close up clear and the background blurry. You can pretend you have a super nice camera this way (you can see the line were the melamine meets the poster board in this pic, I didn't do any editing to this pic)

[ChadOwens]

Pick up a light tent on Amazon for $50 bucks or so and your good to go.

[SlitherinSisters]

Here are some others I took with my 'cheap' point and shoot. As long as you know how to use the settings you can get some great pictures! These were all with macro and no editing.




(Sorry I was too slow to add it to my original post)

[JLC]

I moved this thread to General Herp since it's not specifically about ball pythons.

I agree that you don't need a super-expensive camera to get good pictures. Regardless of the camera, you need to pay attention to some details.

Any big piece of posterboard will give you any color background you want, as it comes in lots of different colors. White for most animals is great...black works nice for light colored animals.

Try to make sure you have as much light already shining on the subject as you can...camera flashes tend to wash out the natural colors of the animals. The more natural the light, the better your colors will come out.

When using the "macro" setting...don't get TOO close to your subject...they do have limits. If you're tooo close, the pic will be blurry. Also, don't use the zoom feature with the macro setting. Won't work and will end up with all blurry shots.

Mostly, just practice practice practice. And take LOTS of pictures. I know when I post pics...for every one good one I put up, I probably tossed out a dozen bad ones. That's the greatest thing about digital cameras....take as many as you want!

[infernalis]

I often place a towel on my kitchen table and use strong overhead lighting.

Use the macro (flower) setting and wait for the telltale "chirp" that your auto-focus has finished and they turn out like this..

[Powerspythons]

I often place a towel on my kitchen table and use strong overhead lighting.

Use the macro (flower) setting and wait for the telltale "chirp" that your auto-focus has finished and they turn out like this..

Great pics! Looks like your snakes like to eat backwards! lol

[h4y4sh1]

One of the important factor when taking photos is lights. lots of it. Uou don't need expensive cameras to take a good picture of your pet.

The cheapest option to get good and soft lighting is to use the sunlight...hey it's free
When you use sunlight for your lighting, it's better to take the photo, in the morning, or in the afternoon, where the sun posisiton is low. This will give "better quality" lighting.
You can also get soft diffused lighting by taking the picture under a shade, or anywhere away from direct sunlight, but still bright enough for your camera to take the picture.

As for backgrounds, you can use anything or any colour, as long as it's doesn't have busy patterns as it will take the attention away from your pet.