Photographing Albinos

[Mel&Keith]

Can someone pretty please help me learn how to photograph albinos. I've been practicing taking pictures of our geckos and I feel pretty good about how the non-albinos are turning out. I just can't figure out how to get good ones of the albinos. I'm using a Canon digital rebel (EOS 300D) and a home-made light box with 2 lights.
this -

and the pics are turning out like this -

patty (Fausto)

albino (Iris)

ANY help at all would be greatly appreciated!


-Mel

 

[Jeanne]

Those pictures look AWESOME! I don't think you need any help!

P.S. Iris looks Great

 

[Milwaukee Reptiles]

Looks pretty decent to me. I guess the question is what don't you like about them? Once we know that we can adjust accordingly, but they don't look bad to me.

As a side question purely for my own curiosity, what lights and stands are you using?

 

[Mel&Keith]

The problem I'm having with the albinos is that they snap their eyes shut and start to run around in circles blindly. If I can't get them in focus on the first shot forget it! I know the bright light must hurt their eyes and I kind of feel guilty. I've seen pictures of albinos that don't look like they're in pain, I'm just wondering how people are doing it. I was guessing maybe a slave flash, but I'm hoping that there's another way because we just spent all of our money on geckos, lol.

Jeanne - You should be really proud of that trio they get prettier and prettier every day! Iris is one of my favorites. And a pig if you can't tell from the picture, lol.

Brian - The lights and stands came as a kit. The tag on the stand says RPS Studio, Model RS-1100. I hope that helps! They were pretty cheap as far as lights go, maybe a couple hundred dollars. I don't really remember though. I just have 250W bulbs in them.

 

[Milwaukee Reptiles]

Yeah I never thought about the light factor. My guess would be that the bright lights are hurting their eyes. You could try stepping down the brightness until they stop moving, and then use a slower shutter speed (possibly with a tripod). Otherwise a flash is probably the way to go, but they'll likely start running after the first shot or two (a few of my gargoyles will run like hell after the first shot).

 

[Mel&Keith]

So you mean I'm actually going to have to learn how to use my camera, lol?

 

[Milwaukee Reptiles]

Afraid so

 

[LeosForLess]

I hold my hand over their head and then pull it off and snap the pic

 

[nicolenadia]

You could always photograph them outside on your deck or something. Just remember, the middle of the day creates the darkest shadows. An overcast day would be the best day, and they won't be blinded by the light. Import the pic into photshop and kick up the saturation like 5 points and then work with the levels for sharp contrast.

 

[bleeding_sarcasm]

i love your set up. i might have to finally do something like that. albinos are like the bain of my exsistance. Really, if it comes down to buying one of 2 geckos, ill nix an albino any day of the week, because i hate photographing them. The worst is with RAPTORs, if you cant see the red eyes, how can you tell its a RAPTOR? and how are you supposed to get it to open its eyes with any light source around? its not impossible, but definitely a pain, id switch to one light, and diffuse it till there is almost none, i use the aperature priority [i use the 350D] and step it down, so i can make the most of my shutter speed, and still get the correct exposure. this is where a table top tripod comes in handy if you dont have a steady hand. I spent a long time getting a billion pictures like this:

haha

 

[gothra]

I would take the pics under dimmer lighting; that's the only way I could get them to open their eyes and stop freaking out. The pics will turn out greyish, but you can fix that in Photoshop by changing the levels (by sliding the right hand side marker a bit to the centre, the overall pic will brighten up without changing the original hue of the pic).

 

[Mel&Keith]

Yeah, it's frustrating. The best way we've figured out so far is to take the pictures from about 10 feet away with a long lens and a flash. That way the flash doesn't wash out the picture but you can still get them with their eyes open.

 

[rhac]

I hold my hand over their head and then pull it off and snap the pic

That's the way I do it.
The other trick is (I hope I can explain that in english...):
Put the Albino on your hand, lift up your hand a bit and now let the animal crawl down from your hand. It will not have ground under its feet so it has to open the eyes to see how to get down from your hand on the ground.
hmmm...I hope you understood what I mean. So with a bit patience and luck of course you get this:

but sometimes even shut eyes look cute

Good luck, Johannes

 

[paulnattress]

What ISO setting are you using? Ideally you would want ISO 100 for the quality and lack of grain but if you use 200 or 400 you could still get really good shots and you could use less light. Using 800 or 1600 on the Canon would introduce too much grain. You'd get a little grain at 400 ISO and a negligible amount at 200.