Friday, February 06, 2009

High Contrast Feline Portraiture

I'm still playing with ways of getting good photos of our Maximum Leader. I shot this one yesterday in natural light with no flash, using a tripod. The ambient light was a bit dim, so the camera picked a slow shutter speed. Even with the tripod, when you zoom in on the original it looks a bit blurry.

I need to figure out the manual settings.

3 comments:

jlbussey said...

Always had that problem with Pepper. If your camera has exposure compensation, set it down by -2/3 to -1 stop. That'll darken everything a bit, but make it less likely to over expose the white areas. Also, you need diffuse light more than direct light. The more direct the light the higher the contrast against the dark. If you have manual focus capability, make sure you always focus on the eye closer to the camera.

I don't know if my pix will help you out any, but you can at least see how the lighting plays out:
http://jlbussey.exposuremanager.com/g/pepper

Anonymous said...

Check out http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/users-guide/index.htm

K T Cat said...

Thanks for those wonderful comments! I will be sure to try them both.