Cat's Eye
Feb, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This is my friend's cat Smudge and was taken in the kitchen at my friend's house.Time
Late morning.Lighting
Smudge was lying on the kitchen floor, facing into bright morning sunlight streaming in through the open back door. The lighting was quite harsh, but for the image I had in mind, it was perfect. Not concerning lighting, but I used a shallow depth of field (f/3.5) and spot focus to ensure the eye was the focal point and all other unnecessary details were blurred.Equipment
Canon 70D with 18-135mm STM lens. Hand-held, no other equipment. I had to get down on the floor at Smudge's eye level!Inspiration
This photo was taken for a photography club competition with the subject "Eyes".Editing
The photo was taken in colour, but with Smudge being a grey cat, the idea to convert it to black and white and leave the eye in colour was a "no brainer". Normal post processing workflow applied - levels, curves to adjust light balance, hue & sat on the eye, then Silver Efex Pro filter applied to manage the B&W conversion. Finally, a white vignette was applied around the edges.In my camera bag
Canon 70D, Tokina 11-16mm ultra wide angle (landscape & astro), Canon 18-135mm STM (walkaround/general purpose), Tamron 16-300mm (wildlife, sports, sailing, also doubles as a walkaround lens when a wide angle is required and I don't want to carry a camera bag around), Kenko extension tubes. Also have a Zomei carbon fibre travel tripod/monopod, CPL filter, B+W 6-Stop ND (67 & 77mm), Cokin P-Series 2, 4, 8 and 16 stop solid and grad ND filters with holder, remote shutter releases (wifi and cabled), micro fibre cleaning clothes, Giotto blower, spare batteries for everything. Depending on the shoot (wildlife, astro, or working close to the ground, etc), I sometimes carry a fold up camp stool.Feedback
I visualised the final image which helped when taking the original image. I find that having an idea of the image I want to end up with helps with the actual taking of the image - composition, exposure, lighting, etc. When photographing animals like this, you have get down to their level.
