Here you go folks! Here's some of the pets that I photographed on Sat. It was an absolute madhouse, but everyone seemed happy, and some folks were overjoyed at the outcome. We're going to do another one before Christmas!
We raised 371.00 for the Hurricane Katrina Animals
Plans changed when I got there...the room we were going to use had to be made ready for an early morning car hit surgery patient. It was a huge Bloodhound (he will make a full recovery)..and he needed the room to sleep off the anethesia. We ended up in the lobby where the whole crowd got to watch and participate, but it worked out fine....it was pretty outside and if we had a timid animal or a kitty, everyone was respectful and gave space to us.
I did tons of dogs, just a few cats, no birds, reptiles or rodents...there was a rumour that I was to get an iguana in a Santa hat, but he never showed.
Here's some lessons that I learned...(for gardenwife and others who are interested)
#1...tripods are useless...mine got dismantled after the first 30 seconds
#2..Shoot without a flash if at all possible...this was my single best idea.
#3..ISO 100 got changed after 1 minute to ISO 200
#4..ISO 200 got changed to ISO 400 after 2 minutes..
#5 Alternate between ISO 400 and 800 to keep your shutter speed fast enough to stop motion
#6 Shoot in AV Priority...saves having to think about settings
#7 Small timid animals with the shakes do best when you drape the human in a backdrop cloth and lay it in their arms. This gets a nice head shot and the animal is comforted. (wish I'd figured this out at 8 am instead of 10 am)
#8 My high school volunteer was priceless. She took care of the prints and the computer.
#9 Use more than one memory card and a card reader...this worked out beautifully.
These are the most obvious things I'd remember for the next shoot. There are other little details, but those are the most important. The lighting was still a bit 'warm' in color and in a more controlled setting I'd make some changes there, but since this was so casual and folks were getting a freebie, we rolled with the flow and just tried to get clear shots. Might have been a bit of noise in the images that I would have dealt with in a more professional setting, but everyone ooohed and ahhhed over each other's pictures and some got back in line for another round!
I got my exercise yesterday...I crawled around on the floor and twisted and turned as much as a yoga class would have...I'm sore this morning! Not terrible, but I can tell I got a work-out.
Well, here are a few shots...I don't even know how many I took yet...but I'm pretty pleased with how it went.
