Tips for shooting a really playful cat?

[Phayke]

Hi, I'm new to these forums. I'm just starting out in photography and have been practicing with my cat. The problem is that he's usually so fast that all my shots end up looking like a big furry blur. I can get him to look my way when he's doing something cute, but usually it's only for a split second before he realizes i'm not that interesting. I caught him in cleaning mode though and got some better shots. I think this one turned out pretty good. Any suggestions from those with more experience? Right now I just have my D40 and a tripod (which doesn't work very good with the cat), so no fancy pro gear for me.



Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 280

[geekgirl415]

No advice other than fast shutter speed/shutter priority- my cat doesn't cooperate either! But this is adorable!! Love the expression and splayed out paw...

[Jake T.]

I have a few dogs and cats. The technique I use to get my pictures is simple. I shoot lots of pics and hope for the best. It's kinda like using a scatter gun when hunting...you've got to hit something eventually.

[Murtasma]

Really your only option for cat's indoors is a flash even a fast lens may not be fast enough to freeze motion with out enough light. Indoors it's very easy, just bounce your flash up toward the celling. Built in flashes can work but they lack the ability to bounce the light off a wall which will want if you don't want red eye on the cat or really hash directional ugly light.

Using a flash will allow you to use a smaller aperture (more forgiveness of focusing, you can even manually set your focus to include most of the room so you don't even need to auto focus. Something like F8 - F11 will work well indoors). Some flashes also have an AF-Focus Assist Beam that is fired before the picture is taken to help with focusing. Some even sweeter flashes can do high-speed syncing so you can shoot at any shutter speed you want (faster shutter speeds will really limit the amount of light the flash is able to output over the duration of the shutter but it's better then nothing. Usually 1/500th or 1/1000th is a good compromise between a fast shutter and the output your flash can produce at those faster shutter speeds.

This is an image I made using the flash. This was shot in total darkness using bulb mode on my camera. I fired my flash manually (not connected to the camera) this allowed me to expose the image only for the duration of the flash since the room was dark. I had a friend manually fire my flash while I was in the air with the cat. The duration of the flash is very short so when working in total darkness and using bulb you can freeze just about any motion you can can think of.



Note: There is a bed right at the bottom of the frame you can't see. No animals were harmed in this shoot.

[bcummings88]

I chuckled (LOLed?) when I saw the dog staring at the person and the cat. He's thinking, "And you want me to do what?" Priceless.

[Murtasma]

Hahah yea she kept jumping on the bed and getting in my shots. I like her in the corner of this one however, she certainly is watching. Kind of weird but it was really dark in there I'm not sure she realized what she was looking at.