# Pictures



## Tinkers Mousery (Feb 20, 2011)

how do people get their pictures of their mice look soooo good and professional??? do you take them yourselves?? mine are crap as i only use my fone but was just wondering how other people do it??


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## AnnB (Jan 14, 2011)

Whilst having a good camera is always a bonus, having a mouse that stays still is a big help and having a background colour that shows off the colouring in the mouse will help.


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## Hali (Mar 2, 2011)

I would imagine having a nice (or at least professional) camera would be best because you would be able to speed up the shutter speed. the faster the shutter speed the more movement without blurring. the problem I have when I take pictures on my phone is the shutter speed is too slow and blurs the mousies if they move.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

A decent digital camera is what I use. The auto setting with, I think it's the macro option (the little flower) does pretty god.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

snap.If you'll pardon the pun


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## Kallan (Aug 16, 2009)

A decent digital camera and the patience to take 100 photos and have 3 turn out presentable! :lol:


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## Tinkers Mousery (Feb 20, 2011)

lol yea i think i need to get myself a decent camera. or just train my mice to stand still lol. iv got the patience as i love taking photos of them but the quality of the pics annoy me. camera it is then lol


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## AnnB (Jan 14, 2011)

Unless you're buying an expensive DSLR camera, you'll need to look for a camera with minimal shutter lag (the delay between pressing the shutter and the photograph actually being recorded).


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## gothling (Jan 6, 2011)

Kallan said:


> A decent digital camera and the patience to take 100 photos and have 3 turn out presentable! :lol:


dito, i have an old nikon d40x with a 18-55mm and a few flashes, but for macro you need a good 100mm macro and a side light and a ring flash so you can have it on a low iso and high shutter speed and closed f stop like 11-22.. lol! to be honest the best pics i used to get of my rats were when it was in a well lit room with bright sun and my very old sony point and shoot set on auto macro. and it totaly depends on the mood of the animal...









200mm nikon d40x f5.8ish 100iso natural light









false ring flash.... 55mm manual focus









natural light... 55mm auto focus









false ring flash and auto macro setting with the 55mm









2 flashes set up either side iso 100, /200th of a second shutter speed 55mm f11? manual focus

the faster the shutter speed that your camera can go to the quicker the image is taken therefor the subject is frozen in motion quicker. but if the shutter speed is fast less light reaches the sensor, so you need more light. flashes on camera make for harsh shadows and flat lighting, so if you're outside say, in the sun and i mean realy sunny, you can push shutter speed up highter, or get some very bright static lights, or some remote trigered flashes... you can use a sheet of white paper over on camera flash to kind of bounce the light in to the room and making softer light. if you have a low f number the depth of field will be shallow (the bit in focus will only be say 1 cm) but it will let more light in and make the photo brighter.. but if you want a lot in focus you push the f stop up to say 11 or 20 and the focus area will be bigger the higher the number but it lets less and less light in so you need slower shutter speeds to compensate. your iso will vary camera to camera. iso 100 will be nice and crispy but iso 800 will be worse, some cameras can go up to iso 1600 without any distortion but others it will only be 400.. and the camera will sometimes let you go up to 1600 even if it'd look rubbish.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_noise about image noise..
the lense you use if you have an slr will make a lot of differance some are fast focusing some better at manual some have good or bad quality glass, some designed for macro some for telephoto etc.. 
point and shoot cameras are usualy good little all rounders as they have to be, but the things above still stand even with a point and shoot set to full aut macro, it's all about getting good light...


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## AnnB (Jan 14, 2011)

Great photos Gothling. I was really enjoying looking through them until I got to the one of a spider on someone's hand. I have nothing against spiders just so long as they're not crawling over my flesh.


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## gothling (Jan 6, 2011)

i forget people don't like them, i have 13 tarantulas at the moment (8 different types)

did the inofr mation make sense? i tend to ramble. i did do A-Level photography with film cameras and dark rooms and everything (14 till 12 years ago, lol!) and the digital camera stuff is self taught..

i actualy think i used the d80 for a few of those pics. biger sensor size i think, definatly higher resolution.


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## AnnB (Jan 14, 2011)

Tarantulas are one pet I'm never likely to want!

I'm keen on photography myself, mainly wildlife but I've never done any courses. I ought to but it's much more fun just being out taking photos.


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## gothling (Jan 6, 2011)

to be honest i taught myself more from books than i did during the course. nothing beats going out and doing.


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