jonathanshoemaker

Mr. Moras

Part of a group of images I took of a local stray cat named Mr. Moras.

Part of a group of images I took of a local stray cat named Mr. Moras.
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NIKON D3200

settings

Aperture f/5.6 ISO 400 Focal Length 959593013/976761

upload_date

Jun, 2015

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Same photographer See all Behind The Lens

One of my favorite photos taken in the frozen swamp.

Found a bike leaning in the Salam street shops

Caught my cat Tigger with his back arched.

Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken in the backyard of my house in Lowell, Massachusetts. At the time, there was a patch of clovers and dirt that the cat enjoyed rolling in.

Time

The photo was taken around sunset in which is considered the "golden hour" where the sun is a constant golden color and is perfect for certain photography. This photo was taken in the month of June in 2015.

Lighting

When it comes down to photography lighting, natural light is always the best kind of lighting. There was a tree above, and so only a portion of the light got through and hit the cats mouth and paw.

Equipment

Used was a Nikon D3200 with an 18 - 55 mm lens taken at an ISO of 400 with an f-stop (aperture) of 5.6 and most likely a shutter speed of 200.

Inspiration

Personally, I enjoy taking photography of animal and nature as well as macro photography. The cat pictured would always follow me around and come when I called him despite being a stray. He was a very active cat and had many poses in which gave me a lot to work with. The lighting was perfect and the cat there so that was the reason I took the photo.

Editing

There was in fact past-processing. As a photographer, the rule of thumb is to take the photos in a raw format (NEF for Nikon) and then go through post production and process the photo into a JPEG afterwards. This is because when knowing beforehand that there will need to be some sort of post-production; it is smart to shoot in RAW seeing there is more room to work with when editing. When editing, all i did was the basic fix-ups in camera raw such as raising the exposure, upping the contrast a tad, and a few other things.

In my camera bag

In my bag, I usually have the essentials such as the camera, a short wide angled lens, and a long-distance lens. One thing I still need to get for my bag is a ND (neutral density) lens. A ND lens is most useful when the sun is bright and basically acts as sunglasses for your lens.

Feedback

When trying to capture something similar in particularly with an animal such as a cat, your first challenge is to get the cat to stay still. Once that is done you will need to focus on the camera specifics such as the lens used and the interior settings. To capture this type of photo, you are going to want to use a lens in which has lower f-stop capabilities so that you can get that shallower depth of field also known as "bokeh". As seen, rather than focusing on the cats eye, the focal point is the cats paw which gives the cats face the blurriness you are looking to acheive.

See more amazing photos, follow jonathanshoemaker

jonathanshoemaker

jonathanshoemaker

Mr. Moras

Part of a group of images I took of a local stray cat named Mr. Moras.

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow jonathanshoemaker

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