How do you photograph your ponies?

QuestorStar

QuestorStar

Super Nova Pony
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
1,022
I'm beginning to suffer PPSAD...Post Pony Seperation Anxiety Disorder lol I'm about to go away to school in less than a month and I obviously cant and actaully dont want to bring my ENTIRE collection with me. So I'm taking a photograph of each and every one and I want to have them printed up and put in an album to stare at each day lol I'm using my dig. camera bc its cheaper to have them printed (19 cents each!) and I know its all about LIGHTING, LIGHTING, LIGHTING. I dont want to take them all outside, then they smell funny....like outside. And the lights in my house make the photographs yellow without the flash, and under-exposed, or, washed out, WITH the flash. If I get farther away, they are green. o_O I know Woosie has BEAUTIFUL photographs....but I'm not an indoor photographer. What does your setup look like? A friend, who IS good at photography told me to usea flood light. I tried that, but it wasnt a huge success. Any ideas?????
 
I usually go outside to take photos, but never take them in direct sunlight. If I can't go out, I take them by a window and have the lights on at the same time. You'll need a good camera too, some cameras just can't take good pics no matter what circumstances. If the light in the pics still turn out funny (too dark, too bright or too yellow) I adjust the light and colours in photo shop :)
 
I spend a lot of time at my job fixing bad photography from "photographers" who don't know anything about their cameras. Photoshop is all well and good, but it takes A LOT less time to take a decent picture than it does to salvage a terrible picture in Photoshop.

My advice to you is this:
White Balance. Learn to use it on your camera. It's really not that hard, and most decent cameras have some sort of manual thing to let you set the White Balance. It will fix your yellow/blue/green/whatever problems with indoor photography, and make things A LOT nicer. And use enough light.
 
Outside or in a very sunny room (or next to a window) seem to give me the best results.
 
LOL
I spend a lot of time at my job fixing bad photography from "photographers" who don't know anything about their cameras
Click to expand...
YA ME TOO! sorta. Hmm...white balance. I dont think my camera has anything like that (or at least labled like that) But thats good to know! Thanks ^_^
 
I'm with Baby Boomba - I despise taking photos anywhere but outside. Natural lighting is ALWAYS the best (and dorm lighting is always the worst!!) If you can't take them outside, you definitely need to open a window or two and let some natural light in. Even if it's cloudy out, that will *always* be better than artificial indoor lighting!

Then there's always the concept of f-stop and the aperature, which if you're going to start adjusting the amount of light that way you'll probably want to use a tripod.

Also, *macro mode.* It makes getting up close and personal (and yet still getting the details) a frickin' snap!
 
Wow, there's a lot of 'outside rulz!' people!!

Well, I'm the oddball, I guess. My mom has a deep-red throw (the fabric thing you put over chairs/couches/loveseats & stuff), thus when I wanna take pictures of my ponies, I take the throw and place it over some stuff on this big flat area right by my stairwell, the nearest window is about 10 yards away, probably, and I do this at night/once the sun's down. Other times, I just use the natural white background of the thing.

I've got my mom's digital camera, it's a Sony-something, and the ONLY way this works is if you use NIGHTFRAMING!! There's a Nightshot too, but that makes everything yellow/cream/pale white, it's freaky. Nightframing is the second setting, you hit a button, and it switches to Nightframe, then Nightshot, then back to normal. Nightframing is my friend, the pics turn out perfectly, and usually manage to make Applejack look extremely gorgeous! :D I've tried to take pictures outside, in sun, nonetheless, and my camera (not the digital, my regular) takes HORRIBLE pictures!! I have a custom w/ red clay things, and they look bright pink! Everything is horribly off-color/bright/lame outdoors if it's too sunny. :|

I also use the leather chair in my living-room (late at night and with the window curtain closed, and with Nightframing) with the red throw on it. And the table next to it with the light on, and no Nightframing, and the pics turn out fine. I guess it depends on your camera, like how good it is/what kind it is.

But if you do take pics indoors, you MUST do it at night in darkness, and use Nightframing (or Nightshot, the first setting on the darkness/lightness of environment button works), and it works just fine. I'll try to get some examples up before this is on Page 15, my host ain't workin' right now. :?

Say, you say you use a digital camera?? Do you know if it has the Nightframe setting, or something similar?? If it does, use that in darkness!! :D So yeah, take indoor pics in the dark!! It works better.

Edit: Here are some (greatly reduced in size) pics taken by my indoor methoods:

Princess Pristie (Pristina Variant, bwahaha!)
9zydsz.jpg


Sparkler (This is NOT blurry, Sparkler's hair is exactly as it looks, curly, messy, screwed-up, yeah.)
9zye8l.jpg


Applejack (My sister's Applejack that she gave to me, oh Applejack, the camera [and I] loves you!)
9zyex0.jpg


Last of all, Rainbow Dash on the lamp-table sporting a new 'doo.
9zyf7k.jpg


The pics look bad because I had to do some serious shrinking for all the dial-up users, but in their full sized-glory, they are perfect!! :D
 
I have one answer to that question

Badly :oops:
 
Wow, thanks Rbldream! The only thing is, I work in a photo lab, so I can print my own ;) although I'll definatly check that out. 5cents...wow!
And I was just messing with my camera. I DID find the white balance and set it to "incandescent" but that setting doesnt get the high detail I want, and the camera quality is set on "fine" which is as high as it will go. Updates tomorrow with pictures. Here is one I got from tonight:


PICT1412.jpg


If you look at his symbol you can tell its funny looking. >.< *waits for sun to come out* lol
 
You can manually set the white balance on some cameras. You usually need something that's pure white(like a piece of paper) and you're basically telling the camera what white should look like so it can correct for the lighting conditions. 90% of the funky looking images I get(and I color correct thousands of images) have screwed up white balance. If you're getting images that are tinted weird colors(red, blue, yellow, green, etc) it's your white balance. If you have a low end camera, your best bet is probably outdoor shots, just make sure you don't leave your camera set on incandecent when you take outdoor shots!
 
Re:

I photograph my ponies individualy in the livingroom. We have a nice shelf there where I can put them up. The light from the ceiling and the big windows are enoug light for my pictures.

At least I think they turn out ok. I do have the flash on and I put my camera on "detaild/closeup photos"

Here's an example =) :

*a little brag as well* ;P

I like that album idea. That's what I'm trying to do with my ponies as well.
I sort the pics after the order they came out and type their names underneath. I do leave space for pics of the ponies I don't have so it will be a while untill I can print out the pages ;)
 
I also take pictures next to the window. Preferably when it's a sunny day. Still I get darker and lighter photos because sometimes it's cloudier or the sun or much brighter as you think.
I keep my backgrounds white or black.
 
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