Some photo taking tips?

[L30girl]

First and foremost, I absolutely do not want to stress out my chams, I've had them for nearly a month now, and I've tried twice to take photos but it seems to me that the only pictures I can get are too bright. I would love to share some pictures with you guys but don't seem to be able to. My camera is a little Cannon of some type, its not the greatest, but its far from the worst and if it is indeed the camera, my friend has an AMAZING camera that I can get my hands on, but like I said, I don't want to stress them out too much. Any input would be greatly appreciated

 

[pssh]

Try it in good sunlight without the flash if it's a point and shoot. Every two to four weeks I take a few pictures of my chams while I take them out for their weekly handling. Its hard not to stress mine because as soon as my male veiled sees the camera he goes into defense mode...

 

[Metric]

Whenever my veiled see's my camera he goes SUPER floresent bright green and does the leaf dance. I'm not sure why he does this, my guess is he can see a reflection in the lens? who knows.

I find taking pictures of my cham in his enclosure to be really tough. The angle of the lighting and lighting given off from the UV tube just doesn't do well with most snap and shoot camera's especially on auto mode.

The best shots i find, are taken outside with natural lighting or when someone sets up lighthing and uses a plain background.

Just remember, flash is not your friend!!! try posting your camera model see if anyone has any first hand experience with it.

 

[SpinyFranky]

I can try and help ya... but without knowing the exact camera you have, my advice will be.... basic.

I have two DSLRs at the moment and its taken me forever to figure some stuff out.

Assuming you have a point and shoot camera,

if you are inside and as you said the images are too white washed/ over exposed turn down the ISO via the cameras menu. ISO 400 is about right for indoor and with flash/ decent lighting.

Outside you should not even really need the flash.

Keep the ISO as low as possible, as I said 400 seems to be the sweet spot on *most* point and shoot cameras, though indoors ive sometimes shot at 800.

You want to keep the ISO low or you will get grainy shots, also known as the blurry curse.

Just so ya know that I know a bit of what Im talking about,

smart shooting and some digital love and your well on your way to great Cham pictures.

S.F

 

[serenitystarlite]

I have a crappy cheap digital camera. I rarely use the flash on the chams because it's too bright and washes them out. The lights in their cage are enough to make my pictures bright enough and as long as they hold still, I can get pretty clear shots. If I take any pictures that seem a little dark, I brighten them with paint shop pro which is similar to photoshop. If it's daytime, I open the shades to make it brighter.

 

[Courtney]

WOW a cham with feathers lol and such vivid colors too...lol

 

[jojackson]

Dont be silly Courtney, Its a panther parrot! A "squauky Be"

 

[SpinyFranky]

Dont be silly Courtney, Its a panther parrot! A "squauky Be"

HAHHAHAHAH!!!!!

this so made my day/night/early morning

He has many names, he goes by:

Nyx: greek moon Goddess
Pancho: named after pancho via
Pancho via: cuz everytime he squaks all the others start to squak as well. LOL

here are his older friends... Lola ( devil bird who hates me )

and Speero ( second devil bird who hates me but bites harder )

ohhh.... the stories of the animals in my house

 

[summoner12]

the camera should be able to dial back the flash if you are getting too much light.

If ya can't dial it back with the electronics... I have used a paper towel over the flash itself to soften the light. You can fold it over a couple of times and that will bring the intensity down.

 

[L30girl]

okay so my camera is a canon powershot a550 again, its not the best lol. I took some pics today after cleaning out the tank. I'm going to post them in the enclosures part of the forum because I need some feedback. I had to put the ISO at the highest level to get some good shots but I think next time, when the sun is actually out I'll try to lower it. The flash works nice if I'm just taking pictures of the enclosure, but not so well when I'm trying to take pictures of the chams because like someone mentioned, it washes out their colour. Thanks for the tips! I think I'm going to borrow my friends camera to take the pics though because hers is a high quality beautiful machine lol.