Photographing a black cat?

ella

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I find it very difficult to get good pictures of my cat, as he is completely dark and there hardly seems to be any contrast! He is just a ball of black. Any tips? What lighting would be best? TIA
 
When photographing a dark subject like your black cat, you have to use less exposure than the meter (or automatic mode) will tell you.

Try -1 or -2 stops.
 
Also add a dark background containing absollutely no bright elements in it.
 
The theory is that the meters in you camera are designed to expose for neutral grey (18%). So you camera wants to give a black subject more exposure to make it grey and a white subject will get less.

As Big Mike said you need to under expose blacks and conversly you need to over expose whites.
 
my parents got a dog portrait done of our pet which is a black poodle. In the pic, he's sat on a white chair with a bright white background and yet you can see all the details on his fur quite well and his face shows up really nice... how'd he do that? just underexposed? howd the white come out so white? I'm confused... :(
 

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