Photographing your Cat, a 10-Minute Advanced Guide

In just 10 minutes, learn some advanced techniques for getting great shots of your feline friend.

By Rob J. Watson

What is needed:

  • A camera with some manual controls
  • A cat
  • Some light
  • Optional: (a bounce flash)

Assumptions:

  • You can conrol lens aperture.
  • You can control shutter speed.
  • You can control focus.
  • You can angle your flash unit both up/down, and left/right.

If you just have a basic point-and-shoot camera, you can still get great pictures. The quality of your pictures depends mostly upon you, not the camera. See Photographing your Cat, a 5-minute Essentials Guide if you don't have a whiz-bang camera with all the bells and whistles.

Your Subject

Here are 5 good habits to form when photographing "Snookums."

  • Get close.
  • Tell a story.
  • Capture candid moments that don't look posed or planned.
  • Take pictures at your subject’s eye-level.
  • Include meaningful elements in your shot and show kitty enjoying himself.

Good Lighting

Taking control of how light affects your photographs is probably the most important thing you can do.

Here are 8 ways to help you gain control of lighting:

  • Use natural lighting as often as possible.
  • Strong lighting from one side of your subject generally provides the most pleasing effect.
  • Morning and afternoon light are generally the best times to make photographs outside.
  • Avoid using your flash as the main source of light.
  • Use fill flash when photographing strongly back-lit subjects.
  • Avoid red-eye by using an accessory flash unit, or avoid subjects looking directly at the camera.
  • Bounce your flash off of a white surface, wall or ceiling.
  • Make sure kitty's eyes are well-lit. Having a "catch-light" (a little white speck of light reflecting off of both eyeballs is always a good choice and adds a professional flair to your photo). Use a paper punch on a piece of thin cardboard, and tape it over your camera's flash so the cardboard covers the entire flash, except for the punched hole.

Focus

Lighting is key, and creativity is king, but in most cases, your main subject should be in focus.

Here are 5 ways to get a handle on focus:

  • Make sure kitty's eyes are sharp.
  • Use shorter shutter speeds to minimize the blurring effects of camera-movement if you are not using a tripod.
  • Use shutter speeds equal-to or faster than the focal length your lens is set to. With a 50mm lens, for example, try not to use shutter speeds slower than 1/60 of a second.
  • Brace yourself against anything solid and unmoving whenever possible.
  • Greater depth of field (smaller aperture diameters), will ensure more of your scene will be in focus, but in general, if you are going for the "portrait" look, your background should be out of focus.

Exposure

Most cameras with auto-exposure do a fine job. In some cases, however, you may need to second-guess your camera.

Here are 4 ways to get great exposures:

  • Increase exposure a little if white and/or bright subjects dominate your scene. Keep Snowball's fur white, but not too white. You still want some detail!
  • Decrease exposure a little if black and/or dark subjects dominate your scene. Keep Blackie's fur black, but not too black. You still want some detail.
  • Digital cameras tend to over-expose highlights. Keep your highlights from getting too bright by deliberately under-exposing by a stop or two if there are bright highlights in your scene.
  • Avoid large, bright highlights, except for eye catch-lights and smaller less conspicuous elements.

Composition

There are rules. Some have been used by great artists for many years, some rules are meant to be broken, some just make sense.

Here are 9 tips of composition that can help you make a meaningful composition:

  • Put kitty's face off center.
  • Show relationships of perspective and scale.
  • Show relationships of  contrast, light and shadow.
  • Show relationships of color and value.
  • Show relationships of texture, patterns, shape and form.
  • Be aware of foreground, middle ground and background elements. Avoid elements that interfere with your intended subject, like that 1960's-era floor-lamp sticking up behind kitty's head.
  • Avoid strong linear elements touching the exact corner of the frame.
  • Don’t use the rule of thirds.
  • Experiment!

Practice

Take lots of pictures. Save the best ones, throw away the worst ones. Hone your technique and show off your favorite feline in the best possible light!