Tell me what you think of these.

[Dovahkiin]

Hi! I’ve been a member here for a while, but never posted. :3
I’ve only been taking pictures with a DSLR for about a year now, since my dad gave me his old Nikon D70, and only recently got myself a decent studio setup.
I’m very far from considering myself a photographer and probably never will, but I think my pictures come out pretty good, especially with an old hand-me-down camera that has a quirky lens.

I took some pictures of some of my pets this weekend. What do you think?
Some of them I had to correct the exposure in photoshop as I turned my F-Stop up too much(to ƒ/8.0) and didn’t realize it while I was taking the pictures(rats do NOT make things easy lol)

I don’t have a backdrop, that’s just the wall back there because I use this setup to take pictures of merchandise, so it’s not completely set up for taking pictures of animals, I had to use an upside-down bucket to keep them from making an escape…

 

Don’t bother looking at the rest of my flickr, it’s just a bunch of random iPhone images.

[cassie]

I think the lighting is good. Did you try any shots from different angles in relation to the table? Not necessarily side to side angles, but from up above and also straight on, rather than slightly above? I would have liked to have seen some of the snakes from up high and the snacks and rats straight on, rather than the slightly above angle.

[cameraclicker]

I think I like this one best:

A little sharpening around the eye might improve it even more.

Interesting combination of pets; snakes and snake food!  Though I guess your snakes are still a little small to eat rats.

In addition to what Cassie said:

– A shot of just the snake’s head might be interesting.

– The white cloth has a distracting pattern, a plain white fabric might be a better choice.

– A smaller aperture for the snakes may have given enough DOF to get the whole snake sharp.  Shallow DOF is an artistic choice, but a nice sharp snake may make a more pleasing photo.  The alternative would be to have a very shallow DOF, with just the head in focus.   Sometimes slight softness is inevitable, but while complete sharpness and very shallow DOF look like choices, a little softness sometimes looks like an error.

– The bucket’s bottom is not flat.  The fabric forms a shallow dish.  Try something rigid under the cloth, on the bucket, either a large book, some plywood, plexiglass or similar material.

– A few of your photos have a shadow on the wall, at left.  A grey wall offers lots of options, unlit it goes black, brightly lit, it goes white, partly lit you get shades of grey.  A uniform shade, or a gradient, will look like you meant to light it like that.  The shadow down an edge looks like a mistake.

– For small scenes, white foam-core makes a good background.  It takes less light to make it pure white in a photo than a grey background requires to get to white.  Foam-core comes in many colours and black, too.  You can also get large sheets of heavy construction paper that work well.  Both are available at craft stores like Michael’s and sometimes at Walmart.

[Dovahkiin]

It’s incredibly hard to get sharp faces, they all jump the moment the flash goes off ;_;

My set up leaves much to be desired, I just grabbed what I had so I had some good pictures to showcase for people interested in my litters(you won’t believe how many people are interested in pet rats, I almost had a fight happen for the the little dumbo girl D: ) and decided to do some snake pictures while I was at it ^^

 

Next time I take pictures, I’ll have to have someone help me so I can get more angles and fix the depth of field! My camera is on a tripod and I’m using aperture to press “capture” so I have free hands to catch the baddies that want to escape lol
It’s zoomed in all the way right now, and that’s what probably causing the shallow depth of field, I have to get the thing closer to them, which means getting it off the tripod.
 

This is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for! Thank you!

I’ll have to make a trip to the store today and get supplies, I was planning on photographing the girls today, and I’ll  definitely keep all the advice given in mind 🙂

 

I have quite an array of pets! I have 4 snakes and probably around 25 breeding rats right now! I mostly breed them for feeders, but lately I’ve had people want to buy pets, so I’m starting to build my pedigrees and hopefully get a successful rattery going :3

We also have a bunch of dogs, a cat, 2 chickens, a koi pond, and a bunny. I think we’re getting a little over-loaded lol

[nesgran]

Here’s a little inspiration for pet photos that stand out (bear in mind these are shot on digital medium format so that utter sharpness is difficult to replicate: http://www.marklaita.com/animals.php

The photos are a good start but they are somewhat lacking, mainly in the light department. The tablecloth isn’t doing them any favours and I’d suggest either polished black or white or putting them on foamboard with foam board as a background.

[Author]

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