Shooting Herps (part 2)

How to shoot domestic portraits.

For better optical quality, I don’t recommend shooting through the glass, plastic or screen though you certainly can. If the animal is outside of its enclosure, on a stand, or in someone’s hands, the image will be clearer. This is not always possible with some very fast moving or “won’t sit still for a minute” types.

A shot taken through some plexi-glass.

NB: If this is your shoot style clean the glass!

The easiest way to use your flash when shooting herps is in TTL mode. TTL is “through the lens” and this will decide based on what your camera’s chip sees through the lens on how much light will come out of that flash.

So in TTL mode and with a shutter speed of around 1/200-250^th of a second you can hold the camera in one hand and your flash in the other. This doesn’t allow for fine tuned focusing but with auto focus and not much movement on your part you will be able to do just fine. That's how I took the gecko photo at right.

The reason why you want your flash off the camera is because on-camera flash is very predictable and ugly. It just is. It says “snapshot” and it spells amateur loud and clear. Making light come from other angles puts more depth and interest into the photo if done correctly. It’s a little different when shooting outside when you have plenty of sunlight. The on-camera flash can subtly fill the cracks, crevices and darker areas of your photo.

Alright, so you have your flash in TTL mode (or you are using a compact camera and your flash is popped up and ready to go). What next?

Patience

Typically, animals fidget, move, try to escape, whatever. Seldom do they just sit there untouched and not move. It’s in their DNA to keep moving. In the wilds, if they stop they get eaten. So then move. It’s survival. But that’s not to say they never stop for a pose … in fact if they didn’t they’d tire and end up eaten anyway.

Domesticated animals can often times be more tame than wild ones. And additionally some animals are more pose prone than others, such as the oft-pose friendly Beardie or Iguana versus the less pose friendly king snake who wants nothing but to slither away.

So if you don’t have patience, put down your camera and go do something else.

Like shooting kids, the first thing is

to get down on their level.

This is quite simple. You look down on a reptile and it becomes insignificant. It’s the typical view that most people would see, but it’s also very boring. If you get down to their level you see a whole lot more. You enter their world. You can suddenly see their face, eyes, arms or whatever scenery they are in. This lends to the authenticity and adds a pro quality to the shots. If you have a stand to put them on go ahead because this is the same as "their height".

While you’re down on their level,

focus on the eyes.

Just like humans, MANY animals from dogs, lions on down to lizards and snakes have personality. Really. The eyes tell a lot. They are also interesting and serve as a great focal point. Many herps have beautiful eyes as well. Unless specifically needing to photograph a particular body part or problem to show someone else, I would concentrate the majority of my focus on the eyes. This applies to portraits with humans as well. I am 95% of the time focusing on the eyes of my models unless accentuating a body part.

Use flash when you need to,

but don’t be afraid to ditch it.

Ylo Yes, flash is great but if you can get great images without using one then why use one? With your free hand you can fine focus your lens which can be important with moving critters. As well with a free hand you can also hold the herp. Some flashes come with a small plastic flash stand which makes your flash stand up by itself. This can be useful too.

Vary your depth of field

for different artistic impressions.

Okay, a shallow depth of field, f1.4, f2.8 will give you great focus but the plane of focus is thin and much of the rest of the photo will be blurred. This is especially good when focusing on a beautiful eye.

But sometimes you want to be able to see a little more so you have to go up to f5.6 or f8. This puts more of the reptile in focus. You will want to use this if you want to illustrate size or perhaps include some things in the scenery to be recognizable. The flip side to increasing the aperture is that the shutter speed goes down the more and more the lens aperture is closed (remember: with the aperture closing there is less light coming in and hitting your sensor, thus “shutter speed controls ambient exposure” because it will require a longer time to gather enough light to expose properly) which may mean you will NEED to use a flash or risk blurry photos or using high ISO which tends to add noise and/or overly soften and thus lose detail.

You have to play around with this one here because many cameras and lenses are as different as the amount of stars in the sky in quality and capability.

Angles, characteristics

and shooting them in their element

Sometimes a good profile shot tells the story. Many reptiles don’t have very flat faces like us humans. So shooting them from straight on sometimes just doesn’t look right. The solution is to shoot from the side.

If you know about the reptile you are shooting, you may want to capture them performing some of their defining characteristics such as flaring up their throat or getting read to strike, or whatever.

Don’t just zoom in close, sometimes you want to zoom out and shoot them in their element. Show some scenery, show the environment they live in. This is great for documentation and educational purposes. The whole zooming in thing is pretty good for artistic renderings.

A couple do’s and don’ts to remember

Some of these are pretty “duh” points but I have to say them because not everyone reading this may know them yet. (Though I have talked about mostly shooting your domestic animals some of these points are pertinent to outdoors shooting, and shooting in the wilds and shooting in the wilds is pretty much the same except you will be using a whole lot LESS flash and a whole lot MORE brain to remain safe and also to not overly intrude on the reptile).

Do be careful where you step and listen to your surroundings while hiking in venomous snake country. In fact, I tend to follow this wherever I am, sometimes more in cities than in the wilderness. Many animals will attack out of defense, fear or from being harassed. Stepping on one is considered harassment.

When shooting outdoors don’t get to close to any animal if you don’t know what it is capable of. The snake may be nice coiled up and apparently relaxed and restive, but remember many snakes strike and can close that distance in a matter of a second. You likely won’t be able to react in time especially if you have a camera to your face obstructing your view. Better to use a telephoto in the wild unless you know exactly what you are shooting and can do it safely.

Don’t make sudden movements, this can scare the animal and it may make them squirm to get away. Handle your reptile with gentle respect. You’ll both be happier.

Lastly, I’ve only heard of this and most of the people reading this never would, but don’t ever put your animal into your fridge or freezer to “cool” them so that they are sluggish and more pose friendly. Not only is this cruel, it demonstrates that you haven’t really read and understood this series.