Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A while back there were a few posts and discussions on best indoor lighting to use for indoor pics. My lighting in my snake room is flourescent which I know isn't the best. I've got lots of baby snakes to photograph and was wondering if anyone has any advice or recalls those posts a while back from Charles Escoffery that spoke about different bulb types for best natural looking lighting.

Mark

what kind of camera equipment do you have?

b
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but it is a Sony, highest pixel count at the time that I bought it, 5.1 megapixels I believe. When I get home I'll provide model number. Any help would be appreciated.

Mark...I think I can help. With digitals, the type of lighting is important, but not quite as important as selecting the correct white balance setting on your camera for the light provided. With old SLR film cameras, you would have to use different types of filters to compensate for different types of lighting. With digital cameras the white balance setting takes care of this. Digital cameras have an auto white balance setting that most people use, but more often than not, it doesn't work very well. To get the best pictures, you want to manually set the white balance. There typically are settings for flourescent light, tungsten (incandescent), sunlight, cloudy, etc. Most interior lighting is either flourescent, which gives off a cool, bluish hue, or tungsten, which gives off a warm, yellowish hue. Setting your white balance accordingly will compensate for these "off-hues" and you will end up with a more natural looking picture.
Here's another tip...try to use a neutral background color...not too light....not too dark. Your camera will compensate for the overall light level of the entire picture scene. If, for example, you take a picture of a snake on a big, black velvet cloth, the camera will increase the exposure and the animal will appear washed out. On the contrary, if you take the picture of a snake on a white sheet, the camera will reduce the exposure, and the snake will appear darker than normal. The best background would be a light gray or a mixture of several colors.

Hope this helps,
Tyler