Trying a Light Box

http://www.neverhomemaker.com/2010/11/how-to-build-light-box-photography.html

Looks easy enough. Our Walmart is borderline super Walmart and has all sorts of fabrics I could find for backgrounds and figure you could use fancy place mats and such for the bottom (like this bamboo mat he uses).

Thoughts? Seems like this would be ideal for shooting snakes in, if you could keep them still. Get larger boxes for larger snakes, haha.

On another note, my professional coworker/buddy is going to walk me through my wife and I's Nikon Cool Pix camera tomorrow so that I can shoot better until I upgrade (if) to a DSLR (way after my next snake purchase, if at all).

Hopefully, I'll have some quality pics of my snakes in the very near future (within the week), once I get the hang of settings and get this all set up in my living room. Will post in this thread for all to see once I do.

Also, found the manual to my camera and talked to my coworker about good settings for shooting my snakes. Feeling a bit better about the capabilities I have and will attempt to get some shots tonight once the kid is in bed, since the Mrs.'s is on duty at the fire station.

http://cdn-10.nikon-cdn.com/pdf/manuals/coolpix/S51_EN.pdf

Didn't realize I had so many capabilities such as shutter speed, sports settings, macro, lighting (party/indoor, night portrait, dusk/dawn, sunset, etc.). If anyone else has one of these or similar, what are some of the things you do?

What about lighting in the house hold? How do you angle for different shots, where do you take them (certain room of a house?), etc.?

Anyone know if I should start experimenting with Macro, High Sensitivity (for snake movement), Sports mode (for pics that are not up close)? Auto has just not done it for me with this camera, so.

Also, should I mess with exposure at all for quality color pics? What's the best way to bring out the patterns and color with these guys and my available settings?

Should I use the multi-shot option?

I like multi exposures, sometimes, when I'm trying to get a tongue shot.

I almost always shoot with autofocus, but with multiple "cells" or whatever it's called, areas of focus, not just one. I try to get a good lock on the head, and then frame the photo.

So after you set focus, then you reframe the rest of the photo and take the shot? I do not have any clue what "cells" is, haha. Illiterate with cameras. I'll look up multi-focus or areas of focus on my camera manual.

In some cameras, you can pick either autofocus right in the center, or it "shoots" at the object to focus, and makes some squares of focus over the areas it's focusing on- like two or three or a bunch. Depending on how many of these focus squares I have on the snake, I either take the shot, or release the autofocus and refocus it automatically again. I would say I usually do this multiple times before getting as many focus squares as I want.

Obviously, I don't do camera terminology well, either.

Some shots with my wife's FujiFilm Movie HD

Nikon is not charged. Messed with some macro, natural light features tonight and got the best pics of my Anery cornsnake I've ever managed to capture. Good practice, but still need a lot of work.

You should take some pics of her tail, from the underside, so we can place bets on her sex!

I will tomorrow after work so you all have a day to decide. Good call, didn't think of that.

Looks easy enough. Our Walmart is borderline super Walmart and has all sorts of fabrics I could find for backgrounds and figure you could use fancy place mats and such for the bottom (like this bamboo mat he uses).:devil01:

Honestly, I have a real photo lightbox / phototent and I find them really crappy. I've tried them with snakes but usually they come rushing out the front or you just can't get the frame right (annoying corners etc). I use a fairly cheap softbox studio light system with my Canon DSLR and I love love love the light!

Here's a photo I made with my set-up, the background is just a big piece of white paper:

Sindrik8x said:

Anyone know if I should start experimenting with Macro, High Sensitivity (for snake movement), Sports mode (for pics that are not up close)? Auto has just not done it for me with this camera, so.

Also, should I mess with exposure at all for quality color pics? What's the best way to bring out the patterns and color with these guys and my available settings?

Should I use the multi-shot option?

Click to expand...

One of the best things you can do is experiment. Try different settings with different lighting. One of the best ways to get better photos is to think about lighting first. The best thing about digital is you don't have to worry about "wasted shots".