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Lava in a light box

martin-bernstein

martin-bernstein

Anything Lava!
I made my first light box (I think some people call them white box) out of a cardboard box and some construction paper. I'm slowly getting interested in photography, but for now all I have is a point and shoot canon powershot. So, with my canon and my light box I shot these pics yesterday of my female landrace lava.

Any suggestions for improvement will be very welcome! I'd really like to get better at taking photos of my snakes. You can see its a DIY lightbox in the first pic upper right hand corner. Aaaarrrgggh.
 

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Oooo I like the light box thing. I'm gonna have to give that a try myself. These pictures are really good! The second one especially! I'm pretty new to photography so I don't really have any pointers... I think you'd be doing great if you had a macro function. I know I found the macro button on my camera (thanks Katia!) and it's served me extremely well. :D

Good luck!

Em.
 
I think that is all you need, great pics. I might suggest (coming from a guy that has a photo box but still shoots on aspen) a darker color piece of cloth or some material for the light colored white or pink snakes.
John
 
Em Wright said:
Oooo I like the light box thing. I'm gonna have to give that a try myself. These pictures are really good! The second one especially! I'm pretty new to photography so I don't really have any pointers... I think you'd be doing great if you had a macro function. I know I found the macro button on my camera (thanks Katia!) and it's served me extremely well. :D

Good luck!

Em.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I got the light box idea from this thread: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59
 
zorro said:
I think that is all you need, great pics. I might suggest (coming from a guy that has a photo box but still shoots on aspen) a darker color piece of cloth or some material for the light colored white or pink snakes.
John
Click to expand...

Thank you kindly. Yes, I'd like to try different colors. A green background would be cool for a blood or fire, as green and red are complimentary contrast colors. I have a lava blood i'd like to try that on.
 
Great looking pics. I really like the orange-ish color and the slightly darker saddle color. The white under his chin adds that last bit of contrast that keeps his coloration interesting.

What are the gray specks on his skin? Are those missing scales or are they just normal gaps in between scales from stretching? For example, look near his tail in the 3rd pic.
 
slitheringdead said:
Great looking pics. I really like the orange-ish color and the slightly darker saddle color. The white under his chin adds that last bit of contrast that keeps his coloration interesting.

What are the gray specks on his skin? Are those missing scales or are they just normal gaps in between scales from stretching? For example, look near his tail in the 3rd pic.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Those specks are actually the saddle borders. Lavas, and particularly this line of lavas have reduced borders, and what they do have left of their borders are often greyish or even purpleish. You'll notice in the first photo that those grey specks are all on the edges of the saddles. This interesting trait is part of why I love lavas! They are such a cool hypo-type.
 
LOL I bought a prepared light box for about 30 euro with different colored paper backgrounds and it sucked, you did better with this one! How much Watt did you use and how did you get the light so bright in the box?

I had 2x25 watt spots delivered with mine on small stands, but they just did not shine through the side fabric enough to light up the box. Yet one of the 'spot holders' broke down and smelled like it had been over powered *ARGH* (it is sitting in my shed now because I'm not ready to admit I'd better throw it away)
 
Beautiful snake! Very nice coloration. No suggestion for light box, for my smaller animals, I just tape table cloths to the wall, and use natural light. :)
 
martin-bernstein said:
You can see its a DIY lightbox in the first pic upper right hand corner. Aaaarrrgggh.
Click to expand...

You could easily take care of that in Photoshop, or if you don't have access to Photoshop, GIMP is free to download.

Also, sometimes a little bit of editing goes a long way.

I took your photo and smoothed out the edge of the light box as well as raised the levels just a tad.

Wah-la! Practically professional.
martinlava.jpg


I uploaded this to my Photobucket so I could host it here for you, I will remove it if you wish. ;)
*Edit: wow I didn't even do that great of a job, you can see that the right upper corner is now whiter than the rest of the image! Ah well, you get the general idea. ;)

I think you're off to a great start! Also, gives me inspiration because I need a nice way to take pictures of my snakes during the rainy season.
 
Blutengel said:
How much Watt did you use and how did you get the light so bright in the box?
Yeah, I just used a box, cut square holes in it, glued some white sketching paper on thesides andplaced random reptile lamps I have lying around on either side and on top of the box. One was actually a 60w heat lamp, and the two others were UVB lamps (I don't know the wattage). I think if you use paper rather than fabric the light will shine through more efficiently. Good luck!

Jessicat said:
You could easily take care of that in Photoshop, or if you don't have access to Photoshop, GIMP is free to download.

Also, sometimes a little bit of editing goes a long way.

I took your photo and smoothed out the edge of the light box as well as raised the levels just a tad.

Wah-la! Practically professional.
martinlava.jpg


I uploaded this to my Photobucket so I could host it here for you, I will remove it if you wish. ;)
*Edit: wow I didn't even do that great of a job, you can see that the right upper corner is now whiter than the rest of the image! Ah well, you get the general idea. ;)

I think you're off to a great start! Also, gives me inspiration because I need a nice way to take pictures of my snakes during the rainy season.
Click to expand...

Thanks! No, keep it here, it looks much better. I don't have any photo editing programs besides the basic Microsoft Picture Manager that comes wioth Windows XP. I work off a netbook. But I'm considering switching to mac and getting me some better image editing software.

Thanks for your input/suggestions!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Hey Martin,

Do you think you could lay out a rough set of instructions on how you made your light box? I've been wanting to give it a shot, but I'm not entirely sure where to start. :shrugs:
 
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