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Useful Photography Tip

A Very Important Tip About Photographing Pets

Chris Gampat
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02/02/2023
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Tamron 17-70mm f2.8 with Fujifilm XH2 sponsored portrait 2.81-125s400 1

If you’re in love with the idea of photographing your cat, dog, or any other pets, then we’ve got a very big tip for you. We’ve talked a lot about how to get your pet to look at a camera. This time around we’ll consider the obvious things in the scene, because you see so much differently than your camera does. With that in mind, the key to photographing pets sometimes has to do with the exposure.

The contrast in the scene is incredibly important when it comes to photographing pets. If you’re photographing a black cat or dog against a black background, your camera is going to have a ton of problems. If you’re using pet AI scene detection, it can also still have problems. Here are some essential tips regarding contrast:

  • Turn up the lights, and use a background that contrasts with your pets fur. This will help the camera’s scene detection while photographing.
  • Changing the exposure preview mode on your camera won’t always solve the problem. Sure, your camera might see better at 1/15th of a second, but can you handhold at that shutter speed? Seriously, it’s all about finding the right light.
  • The right lights in this situation are either warmer or more white in color. Don’t mess around with multi-colored LEDs; they can confuse your camera about what it’s focusing on.
  • Stop your lens down from f2 to f3.5 if you’re using a faster focal length. This goes for all sensor sizes.
  • When photographing pets, use continuous autofocus. Sometimes, it’s a great idea to also tell the camera what focusing point you’re going to use. Years ago, the center and recompose method was used, but now continuous autofocus and tracking allow you to focus and recompose the scene. The camera will then ensure that your furry friend remains in focus.

If you are reading this and animal/pet photography is something that you’d like to get into a little more, the number one piece of advice I can give is that you learn how to understand and read the body language of your subjects.

Craig Turner in our Interview

Of course, we’re not the only ones saying this. For example, check out the photos of Chris Van Riel. He captures dogs midair with a ton of contrast between their fur and the scenes behind them. And he’s doing it with natural lighting. Photographing pets doesn’t always need to be a big studio affair, but it does need to be a conversation about colors and how cameras see. This is all part of contrast detection.

Sure, your camera might have phase detection, but it won’t necessarily help. A camera can have phase detection added onto the sensor and still not be able to autofocus that well. We’d know: we’ve tested cameras on so many cats and dogs in our reviews.

Happy shooting photos of your pets!

animal ai Cameras contrast photographing pets scene scene detection
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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