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I'm trying to get a portrait of my room mates cat (to make up for breaking something of hers but thats another story) any suggestions for this shot or animal portraits in general would be appreciated. Just getting the animal to open its eyes is a chore and usually involves vigorously shaking its food container. This is my first attempt, food in one hand, camera in the other (and incidently first batch of shots with raw). Shot with the Nikon 28-200mm (about 85mm 60s 5.6f i think .. i deleted the raw file so i'm not completely sure )

I really like it. Very nice transition from the colour of the cat to B&W. The only suggestion is to crop out the bit of busket on the left.
Alex

There is this extremely talented photographer on Flickr that has some spectacular pictures of cats. Check out the link to her pics of animals/critters.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/awfulsara/sets/102610/

Thanks dooda .. although i could have done without seeing the picture of the goat! .. that's one damn ugly beastie!

Nice mix of colour and b&w However the red collar keeps making me look at the collar and not the cat. Also agree with cropping the basket on the left.

idioms wrote:I'm trying to get a portrait of my room mates cat (to make up for breaking something of hers but thats another story) any suggestions for this shot or animal portraits in general would be appreciated.

While I certainly wouldn't profess to be an expert on the subject, I would make the following (maybe obvious) suggestions on photographing pets;

1. Relax, take your time and get to know the animal. See what it does and when it looks it's cutest. Then try to capture that through your lens and bring it out in your image.
2. Pick a time you've determined will be a good one for the animal and then shoot, shoot, shoot. Digital film costs nothing, only the prints do. Set your shutter to continuous and hold the shutter button down. Sometimes that's what it takes to get that one good shot or expression.

By far the best thing to shoot a cat with is a .22, but if you only have a camera, then probably best to use that

The de-saturation works well in your picture. The cat looks very arrogant. I'm not sure if that's just cats in general or just that one in particular, but this one reminds me of John Laws.

Idioms

Cats are imperious at best. Sit and wait for the shot. Eventually they'll stay put. Then dangle something just above the camera so they focus there. This one is looking slightly off to its left. And as has already been said, shoot continous (with AF-C to aid focussing - they can move fast). I find dogs much easier (probably because they're dumb ).

I think your shot is pretty cool. I'd make the collar B & W and leave just the eys in colour and let the colour sneak up on the viewer. The collar is too obvious.

Steve
NAUGHTY - may we should call you killacat

Thanks guys. The collar comments are spot on, i've desaturated the collar (about halfway) and darkened the top right corner of white so attention is more focused on the animals face.

Cat comments are also spot on .. I swear this cat thinks he is a tiger (despite the fact that the closest he has come to catching something was a dead fly .. and he missed that the first 2 gos)

TO get a really good picture of this cat--and you just have to trust me on this--is to wrap it hard on the top of the head, then take a picture of the expression. If you're using a telephoto you may have to use something longer like a broom...or a shovel.

Should something go wrong (Heaven forbid) just tell your roomate to look at this thread. You had the best intentions after all and that should count for something.