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Hi, they can be a challenge´, can´t they!
I haven´t got any brilliant ideas, but have had success, including some memorable moments with garden colony feral babes - as soon as they let me handle them they were quickly whisked inside for a portrait 😁 But to do it, I had everything set up and ready to go the instant they came inside. In fact, most of the time I only got a few shots out, so be ready for that first one.. it may be the best.
As for lighting, natural light in a perfect world - but my flat was not perfect so I bounced the speedlight off the ceiling. It gave a soft, natural kind of lighting and did not bother the cats in any way.
I had a feather toy attached to a pole, fishing pole style, already rigged up so I didn´t really have to hold it, just make it swing a bit.
Last pointer, always valid with cats - a calm demeanor and a soft, soothing voice. No pssspsspsss-ing! Maybe a cat that grows up with a psssspssspss-er gets used to it, but to the typical cat, it´s just plain scary.
16 months ago
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Thx for your feedback Ronnie. :-)
16 months ago
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All the four points that the OP listed above are excellent advice.
I've taken cat photos with smartphones, point-and-shoots and dSLRs, but the faster the response time of the camera, the more keepers I get. It also helps to use the camera's continuous drive, high shutter speeds and with the AF mode on servo, as opposed to "one shot".
It's also quite frustrating if the cat happens to like you a lot as it has the tendency to approach you and ruining the focus and composition. Having an assistant (out of frame) to distract the cat would be quite helpful so that you can concentrate on getting the shot right.
Some cats are much more cooperative and they would happily stay still enough for a pose. In my personal experience, using a zoom on a dSLR is more convenient than a prime in for hyperactive kitties. I generally avoid using head-on flash as some cats can get startled by the bright light.
I usually favor using Aperture priority mode for cat pictures, but I often forget that Shutter priority mode with the shutter speed dialed high enough to freeze motion is much better for unpredictable cats, unless they're chilling out or asleep. 🐱📷👍
16 months ago
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Also some very good points. Different cameras, different settings, different tricks depending on the cat! Need to be ready to pull out the tool that works best. One setup doesn't fit all.
16 months ago
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I need to find an irresistible portable motion toy that will work with the inattentive older cats and get my hands free. These are shelter cats, sometimes 'depressed', that could be adopted.
16 months ago
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A well-composed photo of a cat always catches my eye. Background is important in telling the story, too much clutter is distracting while no background doesn't provide any insight into the cat's behaviour. Except for macro shots consider the context!
16 months ago
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This may go without saying, but having an assistant can really help. Someone to get the cats attention while you operate the camera.
16 months ago
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I know a Flickr pal named William, who fostered shelter kittens together at home with his missus. He took very interesting photos of the baby cats to make them more appealing to potential adopters and would upload them to his Flickr account like so:
Many of his kitten photos featured them standing on both hind legs and appearing to reach out with their paws. I finally had to ask William, how did he get the cats to pose like that and he replied that he used an attractive dangling toy called "Cat Dancer". The toy is usually above the frame but in some examples in which the near-transparent fishing line could be seen, he would digitally erase traces of the line in post.
William used a Canon PowerShot G5X compact for his kitty pictures. This isn't a sports camera by any means but he had learned to manage with it, while playing with the kittens. He had the G5X ready to shoot in one hand and the Cat Dancer pole in the other. I had forgotten to ask if his wife ever helped him with the dangling toy, I presume she probably had assisted him for some shots. 📷🐈
16 months ago
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That is a nice composition for an adoption photo. 'Cat Dancer' is the name of the kitty toy company. I have their 'Rainbow' toy, but our older cat now ignores it.
16 months ago
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There is another broader element to this topic regarding personal appeal for any image. Clearly one knows a very good photo from a poor one. But when I survey images on Flickr I often see an image with a high number of 'Favorites' that I would have discarded if I took it, whereas some (including some of my own!) I see no 'Favorite' which I would rate high. I guess I am struggling to also understand the personal perspective. Maybe it involves a bit of 'art (ie, intellect)' vs. 'pleasure (ie, emotion)'? Depends on the goal and the audience.
16 months ago
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 jdphotos2007:
"But when I survey images on Flickr I often see an image with a high number of 'Favorites' that I would have discarded if I took it, whereas some (including some of my own!) I see no 'Favorite' which I would rate high"
Good point, Jack. Unfortunately Flickr isn't too far off removed from the likes of Tik Tok and Instagram. You have excellent photographic equipment for cat portraits (5D Mark III + EF24-70L), which professional wedding photographers who favor Canon would use.
I've known fellow cat lovers on Flickr since 2009 and many of them became my personal contacts. Years of observing other people's number of favorites and views have shown me these facts:
1. It's not a photo exhibition, it's a popularity contest.
2. The image quality doesn't matter nor the photographic equipment used.
3. The Flickr member has to have many, many followers but they need not follow as much in return. Either the member is well liked by followers or his/her cats are idolized by many.
4. All else being equal, people favor cute kitties and cats in amusing poses.
I consider myself to be an average cat photographer. I love my cats but I don't have the drive to take and upload new pictures of my felines every single day like I used to. I've had some less-than-stellar photos that were snapped with my smartphone but were more well received compared to better looking counterparts that were shot on dSLR.
I happen to know someone who has nearly 4K followers and owns just three cats. For some reason he doesn't mind if viewers don't leave a comment on his pictures but he prefers faves instead. This guy uses a micro four thirds camera for his kitty shots. 90% of his indoor shots appear to be underexposed (he also uses the built-in flash) and none of them are post processed. That's right, he shoots in JPG and whatever he uploads are SOOC images. No DxO RAW, no Lightroom, no Photoshop, no Luminar, no GIMP - nothing.
If his pictures were judged solely on the merit of composition, originality and quality, they would have long ended up in the Recycle Bin. But no, his cat photos are often picked by Flickr's Explore algorithm each month. I've lost count how many of his submissions were Explored and I've stopped congratulating him on his latest Explore entry. I know some of his viewers would comment, "Well done! This is a well deserved entry for Explore!" but I find it hard to put on a straight face and congratulate his achievement for a snapshot that a ten year old child could also do. For him, his kitty photo being picked by Explore has become a routine expectation.
16 months ago
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This is getting off my original topic, but the whole ratings thing for flicker, fb, imdb, google, etc have no standards, biased on many levels. I see some people fav a photo as quid pro quo to gain followers. Most photos I take are just for me, I don't sell them, so doesn't matter. For shelter cats though I will employ the above suggestions and see what happens.
16 months ago
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jdphotos2007:
The subject of giving a favorite vs liking a photo has been discussed for many years across many Flickr related groups. Some members had proposed Flickr (when Yahoo was in charge) differentiate the two compliments. Liking a photo isn't necessarily the same thing as counting it as a "favorite", but apparently Yahoo thought that "Like" would already be mimicking Facebook.
Since Flickr didn't want to explore other forms of ratings, many people are forced to "fave" a photo to reciprocate - they feel it's just good manners to give a fave in return. I like cat photos, but I feel that not all of them qualify as my personal faves. Poor lighting, bad composition, camera blur, misfocused shots, etc.
In William's case, he once told me that he didn't take the kitty pictures to look like National Geographic's wildlife images. He only made sure that the kittens look adorable enough in his photos to attract potential adopters. His pics aren't blurry and reasonably exposed as the pictures were used as an online catalog for people seeking to adopt cats.
I'm sure you've seen plenty of cat memes on the Internet! Many of them have been reproduced so many times that the image quality had severely degraded. People don't view them with a magnifying glass - all that's needed is a subject or situation that is humorous or super cute. 🐱💓
For example, do you remember seeing this photo of a cat?
No? How about after it had become a popular Internet meme? 😁
16 months ago
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by cras.pbish 19 months ago
