I just lately did a photoshoot with some reptiles and small critters. All have been Australian animals, however I’m fairly certain most reptiles are related around the globe. I’ve executed this a number of instances and it’s at all times quite a lot of enjoyable, so long as you don’t have an issue with reptiles. We had a handler on-site, to wrangle the animals and reptiles and preserve us knowledgeable on their habits, habitat and desires.
The setup for the reptiles and critters
- Attempt to preserve the room heat, most reptiles, particularly our Australian ones are coldblooded and are extra docile and joyful if they’re heat. Nevertheless, whereas utilizing studio lights, ensure that they don’t get too heat or dehydrated.
- Every reptile, insect or animal was solely out for about 10 minutes at a time.
- We arrange a desk and positioned black Perspex or Plexiglas (relying on the place you reside) to get pretty reflections. Take note it would have to be wiped down often — NEVER use chemical substances like glass cleaner on the Perspex as it may well hurt the reptiles by means of contact. Simply use water and a paper towel. We additionally positioned a black sheet on a backdrop stand to maintain the background impartial and keep away from undesirable reflections.
- We used logs to pose the animals and add some curiosity to the photographs.
- With the studio lights, we now have discovered that fixed LED lights have been much less upsetting for the reptiles than a flash. I’ve heard of individuals utilizing flash with nice outcomes as properly.
- We discovered if the lights have been turned down a bit or not overly vivid the reptiles have been additionally pretty joyful. The draw back to that’s that it is advisable have your ISO turned up a bit.
Digicam gear
- I used to be capturing with my Sony a7ii and my Sony 24-70mm however ended up utilizing the 50mm macro for many of my images, however saved the f-stop pretty mid-range … f/6.3.
- I discovered with a better f-stop like f/2.8 it was troublesome to take care of an ideal focus as they have a tendency to maneuver round a bit.
- My ISO was at 1250 and my shutter velocity I attempted to maintain above 1/80s for each readability and sharpness and keep away from digital camera shake.
- A tripod was probably not an possibility because the animals transfer round a lot, that you need to preserve transferring round with them
The animals
We had quite a lot of Aussie animals that day. There was an Australian leaf insect, Albino Darwin carpet python, central bearded dragon, Centralian tough knob tail gecko, crimson tail black cockatoo and a inexperienced tree frog.
None of those animals is taken into account harmful in any respect, however for their very own security, we dealt with them as little as potential and let the skilled handler cope with transferring and posing them. We did must get cautious with a number of of them after they tried to depart the desk — geckos might be VERY fast and frogs can leap fairly excessive.
This was an ideal afternoon spent with some curious Australian animals. I’m certain every nation has its personal distinctive reptiles, critters and animals. Personally, I believe I might draw the road at spiders — particularly tarantulas — and something that might be remotely toxic, however maybe that’s simply me.
We additionally had a portrait session with a handler and his Queensland Carpet Python, Monty.
