# professional pics.



## bunnychild (Oct 11, 2011)

I have noticed that alot of you have BEAUTIFUL pictures of your rabbits and i was wondering 2 things, how do you get them to pose in such cute poses, and how do you get the picture to look like it was done by a professional?

thanks for your time


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## LaylaLop (Oct 11, 2011)

I sit at the ready with my camera on high-speed... I take A LOT of pictures to show you guys the 10-20 I do end up posting. Some of those aren't even the greatest, but I probably take 100 pictures for every 10 I post.. 

Like this one was taken with my Canon DSLR







and this one, was taken with my iPhone..





When she's being lazy and sleeping and all I have on hand is my phone, it usually works. But if she's moving, I cannot get clear pictures unless with my nicer camera. You can try a sports-setting or auto if you don't want to deal with all the manual-adjusting.

Also, make sure your lighting is good and you have a clear-view of where your bunny is. My camera also has a stabilizer built in. Helps catch the cute moments when you just let them be themselves and go all paparazzi.  Also, stay zoomed out further and crop the picture on your computer instead of trying to go all close unless you have a macro lens. That way you get clearer shots and don't cut off ears/tails/feet if they're moving. 

Hope that helps some! The nice thing about digital is it's not expensive to take a hundred shots vs film, so shoot away!


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## MikeScone (Oct 11, 2011)

> how do you get them to pose in such cute poses,

I don't - it's a matter of waiting until the bunny's in a cute pose, then snap. You just have to have the camera ready, and be able to grab the shot when it appears. 

Sometimes you can get a rabbit to look alert by making a noise or saying their name or something like that. Sometimes you can anticipate when they're going to do something just by knowing the bunny. 

> how do you get the picture to look like it was done by a professional?

Some of it's equipment, but really that's less important than it seems. Yes, a good DSLR will allow you to take pictures under marginal conditions where a cheaper camera might not, and for printed enlargements you can see the difference - but most of the time for web posts that's not a big factor. Unless the camera's so crummy that it just won't take good pictures, you should be able to get good shots with any decent digital. Ken Rockwell once wrote that the biggest thing a camera has to do is not get in the way of capturing the image you envisioned when you hit the shutter. If it can do that, everything else is technique. 

I suppose the first thing is, "take lots of pictures, but don't post the ones which don't look good". It seems simplistic, but if you throw away the bad pictures, what's left is, on average, better. Learn to be heartless about it - if the picture's fuzzy, throw it out, even if you remember that the bunny looked really cute when you took the shot. 

Second, learn to use your camera. Figure out what the controls are and what they do. Today's cameras do lots of things automatically - but don't just set the camera on "auto" and expect it to do everything for you. Learn how to set shutter speeds, changefocal lengths, or adjust apertures for depth of field, or how to use flash - or if the camera only allows you to change "scene modes", learn what the modes are and when to use them. It's not all that complicated, really. If you've got any questions, ask. That's what this Camera Corner is for. 

Then, think about what the picture's going to look like before you take it. Andreas Feininger called this "visualization" in his books on creative photography (I have no idea if any of them are still in print, but if you can find them, they're priceless). Ansel Adams would sit and wait for hours until the light would be just what he'd imagined when he set up a shot. You're not going to do that in taking a shot of a bunny, obviously, but you can think, "this picture would be better if I moved a little left and got the overflowing trash pail out of the picture". 

It may seem odd, but our brains are hard-wired to like some things visually. There are lots of rules about what makes one photograph better than another - "composition" - which in many cases are simply ways to make your pictures match what your brain expects to see.For example, people in Western cultures learn to read from left to right, so your eyes naturally "read" a picture the same way. Make your pictures flow in that direction. Don't center the subject every time - by the "rule of thirds", pictures look better with the subject on a "thirds line" (think of a tic-tac-toe board superimposed on the frame, and put the subject on one of the lines). Don't have anything in the picture leading your eyes out of the frame - your mind will try to follow, and it will look "wrong". Sure, photography's an art, and rules are made to be broken - but learn the rules first before you break them. For some examples, see this thread.

Finally, don't post pictures right out of the camera. A lot of looking "professional" is properly processing the pictures you keep. Adjust the images so the blacks are black and the whites are white. Crop out things which distract from the image. Make sure the picture's level, not tilted. If there's a color cast, correct it. Remove red-eye. And so on... There are a number of threads in the Camera Corner which can help with that, like this one about rabbits with red eyes. 

Now, go take some pictures and share them with us!


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## bunnychild (Oct 11, 2011)

That is super helpful i had never heard of those things before. what kind of camera should i use mine are terribly


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## Nancy McClelland (Oct 11, 2011)

Mostly, it's just having a camera at the ready and catching them in the moment. then, it's sorting thru a myriad of pictures and choosing what you like.


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## bunnychild (Oct 11, 2011)

OK thanks


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## LaylaLop (Oct 11, 2011)

I felt inspired by everyone's talking photos so I set up a mini photo-booth on my kitchen table with a pink sheet. Here's one of the pics I captured today:






You can use a basic point and shoot, I love my canon powershot as well, but I usually use my DSLR camera (Rebel T2i) for the bunny pictures. Good luck!


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## Watermelons (Oct 11, 2011)

I dont think Mike could sum it up any better.

All I want to add is LIGHTING LIGHTING LIGHTING. Nice lighting makes a world of difference and avoids a dark pixely picture like you will typically see.
I will always use my flash unless I can get a good balance with my film speed set to above 100.


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## bunnychild (Oct 11, 2011)

i have used a lighting on my phone camera to find a kitten in a hole


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## OneTwoThree (Oct 12, 2011)

Knowledge of exposure helps  My images of Lady in a couple threads up are Raw(unedited), I find the light and shoot in it  I don't use flash unless its my external and then I bounce it off the ceiling. I make sure my white balance is right (making the whites white and not yellow or blue) I also avoid bright colors (red, green) to avoid color casts


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## bunnychild (Nov 1, 2011)

i used some of these ideas and got some great pics of them for halloween


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## Nancy McClelland (Nov 1, 2011)

:clapping:


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## bunnychild (Nov 1, 2011)

thanks Nancy McClelland


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## MikeScone (Nov 2, 2011)

*bunnychild wrote: *


> i used some of these ideas and got some great pics of them for halloween


Great! Let's see them...


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## RoscoTheRat (Nov 2, 2011)

I chase my rabbits around with a camera ready... they love me so much. Soon I'll be getting a really nice camera... they are going to hate me more. Lol.


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## bunnychild (Nov 2, 2011)

they r in my pictures they r a little blurry because i only have a phone camera (i lost one camera and my other is broken)


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## bunnychild (Feb 20, 2012)

I so need a real camera!


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## MiniLopHop (Feb 21, 2012)

What programs do people use to process their pictures? Can you get a decent one for a low price?

I just got a spiffy new camera that I'm learning how to use, but so far no processing for the pictures.


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## LindseyG (Feb 21, 2012)

For simple processing I love picasa 3. I use it for my pictures. It's free.
http://picasa.google.com/

btw I have a pentax kx dslr and I find just taking multiple pictures I will have some bad, some good, and some great photos.


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## MikeScone (Feb 21, 2012)

*MiniLopHop wrote: *


> What programs do people use to process their pictures? Can you get a decent one for a low price?


With all the photography I do, I sprung for full PhotoShop at home - but it's pretty pricey. I have PhotoShop Elements at the office and it really will do everything you need to do for a much lower price - there are some features missing that I've become used to in full PhotoShop, and it's got a "user friendly" interface that drives me crazy sometimes, but for most work it would do just fine. 

There are free photo editor programs. In addition to Picasa, there's also Gimp, which I'm told is pretty good. You can get it at http://www.gimp.org. 

I've never used either of them, but each has its enthusiasts.


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## woahlookitsme (Feb 22, 2012)

I've used picasa before. It's pretty simple to use and has some cool basic features. And It was free 

I learned how to use photoshop in highschool and since i found it on the school computers in college I continued to use it. My mom finally bought the CS5 version for me using a student discount BUT my computer can't handle it so i gotta wait to install it till i get a better laptop :/ If you care to spend the money its awesome! Tons of tutorials everywhere on how to use the programs. Price: $199 LOL


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