suggestions for this issue

So I am taking a lot of pictures of my cats. Close up. And I hate using the flash since they shut their eyes when I do and then run away. A few weeks ago I took this of my one cat, Willow. I find other than her eyes it is very black, and yes she is black, but my photo is lacking the detail of her face and chest. Since it was dark I used the Highest ISO, but that is about all I can remember. Any suggestions of how I can get the detail in her face and chest and not use the flash??


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Try increasing the ambient lighting. Desk lamps or one of those adjustable lighted magnifier lamps work well for this, bur you have to find a way to diffuse the light or it will make harsh shadows.

 

This is an issue that I've had to deal with. My particular problem is that I want definition of the fur, but I still want the fur to look black. But when I illuminated my feline friend she turned brown. This is the problem with black cats.. They're often secretly very dark brown.

As pretty much everyone has said, the real issue is experimenting with the exposure to get enough light that you can see detail in the black fur, but not blow out the rest of the scene. I tend to dislike strong direct light, not so much because of the shadows but because it causes bright reflections off of the fur and it can actually add too strong a white component. I suspect my best option is to use one of those ultra bright halogen lamps that you reflect off the ceiling, that should soften the light some, and they tend to be dimmable so I can see if I can find the right brightness level that gives me fur definition without white highlights or turning her brown. I've gotten useful results bouncing a flash off the ceiling, but that's been kind of crude.. I think I just turned it on full manual power and manually adjusted the exposure to try to get a good result.

I think my best results to date came from an accidental lighting setup, she was sitting near the sun without quite being in the sunbeam, and on the other side of her a bright, shiny red sleeping bag was draped over a chair. The sleeping bag reflected red light against the direction she was facing, while her back was more strongly illuminated from the sun. Okay, so it's not ideal.. but I was pleased, it's still among the best shots I've gotten of her yet. The red gave her fur a nice rich tone, and the truth is she does show a slight reddish component to her coloration under strong light. She's not prone to being in locations with good lighting, either she hides in the dark or sits in direct sun, or worse still half in and half out of the sun.

I suspect some knowledge of studio lighting techniques would be helpful here. But I've always been a firm believer in ambient light shooting, so it hasn't been an easy change to start adding my own illumination.

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I like it very much, Dan! I'm with you on using ambient light sources. I love to take portraits with light coming through a window, especially if the window faces north. You might also try other reflectors which was what the red sleeping bag was doing for you. Maybe a gold colored reflector will give you some good results.

I had a different problem when I was taking pictures of white or gray horses with film. I shot a few rolls at what I thought was good exposures. The pictures came back and boy was I surprised at the red fur in them. I went back out and shoot a whole roll of the same horses backeting exposures 5 stops either way. Taught myself a lesson about opening up on bright subjects and closing down on dark ones. Of course, today we have LCDs, histograms and exposure compensation making it far easier to get good exposures...cheaper, too!!!

 

The best solution is the one that Dan suggested - use a white cloth or cardboard to reflect light to the darker parts. You can also use a piece of aluminum foil, but that might scare the cats.

Sean, there is still lots of detail in your original photo that you can coax out by using levels or curves. Here is your photo with a bit of levels correction:



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