SunCoast Sugar Gliders

Capturing great photographs of your pet sugar glider is fun and easy if you keep in mind some basic elements of photography. Lighting, film speed, aperture, shutter speed, and basic composition all play a role and have a synergistic effect towards the final outcome of achieving that “great photograph”. These basics will be discussed in depth in the following article.

Whether you have a digital camera, point and shoot 35mm camera, or a professional end 35mm or medium format camera, the basic rules of photography still apply. For the purposes of this article, I will separate the article into two parts; one for photography using film and the other section for digital photography.

Photography Using Film Cameras

One of the most critical things to consider if using film versus digital is the quality of the resulting photograph that you would like to achieve. If you want the sharpest clarity, a general rule of thumb is the lower the speed of the film, the better. These film speeds are commonly referred to as ASA or ISO numbers. The lower the film speed, the sharper the image. The higher the film speed, the grainier the image becomes.

At the time of the writing of this article, film negatives offer much more clarity than digital images. The negative from a point and shoot camera using average speed film is about 50% greater clarity than the highest priced digital camera on the market. An average 35mm negative contains about 17 megabytes of information while the best digital camera on the market approaches 11 megabytes of information. The better the film, camera, and lens of the film camera, the better the resulting image. So there is at least a 50% difference in better image quality in the worse case scenario using a point and shoot camera.

The ASA of most available films is 100, 200, 400 and even 800 ASA. The 100 ASA film requires sun or a flash indoors. The 800 ASA film is good in low light conditions and with flash for fast moving gliders. The choice of film depends on what type of lighting you are using to photograph your gliders and how much grain you find acceptable in a photograph. Color saturation of the photograph will almost always be enhanced by using a flash. Fuji film with a fourth layer of emulsion would be my choice for photographing gliders.

All other manufacturers produce a three layer emulsion film. Fuji adds an extra layer for enhanced color and for photographing in fluorescent light. Keep in mind that we are talking about daylight balanced films. Fluorescent lights will result in the photographs having a green tinge if improper lighting or a weaker flash is utilized. The extra layer of emulsion that Fuji has in its four layer emulsion film readily eliminates that problem by correcting for fluorescent lighting. Halogen lights turn daylight balance film yellow to orange, depending on the intensity of the halogen light. Most of these concerns can be corrected with filters or in the photo lab, but not all.

Once you have selected your film and speed of the film you wish to use, the next thing is to consider what type of camera you own. If you own a point and shoot, you will be limited as to the desired effects you wish to achieve. If you are using a camera that has manual overrides, then you can accomplish almost anything that is possible to do with a camera and that you wish to capture on film.

Lenses range from wide angle fish eye lenses (9mm) to telephotos of 600mm. Many of these lenses would be cost prohibitive for the amateur photographer, but a standard 50mm lens or 28mm to 80mm zoom lens would be just fine. If you can afford a 75mm to 300mm telephoto zoom lens, than you can do almost any type of glider photography with professional looking results.

I personally do not recommend photographing in “Program Mode”. To obtain the desired result in your photograph, “Manual Mode” is the way to go. Once the film speed or ASA of the film has been established, then we need to consider the lighting conditions. Since sugar gliders are nocturnal creatures, the lower the light, the better for the glider. If you are not using a flash, 800 ASA film is the way to go. If you are using a flash, consider your glider’s safety first.

A flash diffuser is always preferable. Many flash units have them as an accessory when you purchase the flash. They can vary in quality from clear pieces of plastic to white double diffuser attachments. They work by spreading out the light from the source of the flash.

Think of a fire hose shooting water at you. If you get hit directly, there is enough force to knock you off your feet. But if the same stream of water must go through a metal screen, you will still get the same amount of water but it will be much less intense. The screen will spray the water out in all directions but the intensity will be decreased so that you are not knocked off your feet. The same is true with a flash diffuser.

If you only have a point and shoot camera or a flash without a diffuser, you can improvise by taping tracing paper or another thin white paper over the flash. If you have low ceilings and your flash head can swivel straight up, you can bounce your flash off of the ceiling with the same effect as a diffuser. If you bounce your flash, keep in mind that the color of the ceiling will be reflected in your photo. So light to white ceilings are preferable if you are using the bounce flash method.

Aperture or F/stop is the width of the opening of the lens. These are the numbers on the lens that range from F/32 or F/22 to F/2.8 or greater. F/22 is a very small opening in the lens and F/2.8 is the largest opening on most lenses. The larger the opening, the more light that exposes the negative. One would think that F/22 is the larger opening but the numbers are actually inverse. The bigger the F/stop number, the smaller the opening. So in a dimly lit room a bigger opening of the lens is required or a smaller F/stop number.

Depth of field is the biggest consideration in deciding what F/stop you choose. Have you ever seen a photograph where the background is blurred and the pet is in perfect focus? Well, that is known as selective depth of field. The bigger the F/stop number, the greater depth of field. So F/22 will be in focus about three feet in front of you to infinity. An F/stop of 5.6 or 4 will blur the background if you focus on the subject. An F/stop of 2.8 will only give you several inches of focus before and after the subject. Therefore, the subject will be sharp and clear, while the foreground and background will be out of focus and blur. The larger the lens such as a telephoto, the greater this effect will be.

Shutter speeds are relevant to F/stop numbers in many ways. But let's first discuss what shutter speed is all about. Shutter speed refers to the opening and closing of the shutter. For this example, we will assume that we are using a midpoint F/stop of F/5.6. So the lens is stopped down halfway. If we are not using a flash, we can use any shutter speed we want. However, it is difficult to handhold a camera and get a sharp image under a thirtieth of a second. I can do it, but I am a professional with years of practice under my belt.

A tripod should be used with your camera if you are using a shutter speed of one thirtieth of a second or slower. A shutter release cable with the tripod is also preferable to reduce camera shake. It would be best for those who are not professional to stay with shutter speeds of a sixtieth of a second or faster. If you really want to stop action without a flash, a shutter speed of one 500th of a second or greater will do the trick. Many professional cameras have shutter speeds of one eight thousandth of a second but we only use that with strobes to stop bullets in midair. So if we use a shutter speed of one-thirtieth of a second, the shutter will open and close that slow. With an F/stop of 5.6 that will allow the incoming light through the 5.6 opening of the lens for a longer amount of time than a shutter speed of one 500th of a second.

This is why a camera’s built in light meter is important. If you have one built into your camera, use it. If not, than flash photography is your best option. Almost any flash on the market will do at a short distance. Most are rated at ISO or ASA 100 for 100 feet. A diffuser will decrease that distance, but in reality, without a telephoto lens, no one is going to take pet sugar glider photos from 60 feet or more. Plus, the color saturation with flash is almost always preferable for taking photographs. Even outside in sunny conditions, professional photographers use flash to fill in shaded areas on a subject. This is known as fill flash.

The F/stop numbers and shutter speeds work together to achieve the desired result. So by choosing your F/stop for a desired depth of field or choosing the shutter speed for capturing or blurring the image, anyone can achieve great quality photographs.

OK, that's enough information sharing or I might be out of business due to increased competition!

Digital Photography

Digital Photography is very similar to using film cameras. The same settings and theories apply if you are using the manual mode on your digital camera. The only difference is that the image is captured in digital format known as pixels. Let’s go over some of the basics.

Pixels

When choosing or using a digital camera, it is important to keep in mind the limits of the digital equipment you are using. Some digital cameras are very basic and do not have a digital flash and the pixel count is very low. The greater the pixel count, the greater the quality and sharpness of the photograph.

Most digital cameras today are in the range of 2.2 to 22 megapixels. A million pixels equals one megapixel. The greater the megapixel count, the sharper the photo will be when enlarging. A 2 megapixel camera will produce a nice 4 x 6 photo quality and a nice 5 x 7 reproduction, but the 8 x 10 image results tend to get wavy lines. A 3 to 4 megapixel camera will do up to 8 x 10 very nicely, but 11 x 14 prints tend to get distorted a bit. In the shaded areas it will look like a painting more than a photograph when there is more than a 3 F/stop change in density.

There are professional 6 or more megapixel cameras but they are rather expensive. Professionals do use them but they do have some limitations. They are about $5,000 just for the body of the camera without the lens. If you own a medium format camera such as the Contax 645, you can get digital backs of up to 22 megapixels but they are cost prohibitive. That camera with lenses, flash, and battery pack is in the $12,000 dollar range. Add another $11,000 for the digital back and well, you can see my point.

While a professional photographer may own one, it is not feasible for the amateur market at this point in time. It is very cost prohibitive and try finding a lab that can print in the 22 megapixel range! The best suggestion I have for those using digital cameras is to always photograph gliders using the best resolution your digital camera permits. You can always change the resolution later but can not increase it at a future date if it is not there. If need be, download your media card, memory stick, or compact flash card as often as necessary to preserve the quality of the photo.

If you want to use your digital camera for taking sugar glider pictures, try using automatic mode at first. Normally, most digital cameras do the thinking for you. The results are very dependable, with a few exceptions. The exceptions are for macrophotography (close-ups), telephoto lens use, and flash limitations.

Digital flash can be overpowering at a short distance and not enough flash output for telephoto lens use. This is because the digital flashes are built in and the TTL sensor overrides the flash so that there is not too much or too little flash output. But when doing close-ups, the built in digital flash may be too much light for the photo.

The second exception is using telephoto lenses for distant photos. Usually the flash output is not enough to light up the photo. This will cause photos to look to dark or underexposed.

The third exception to the rule is flash limitations as far as redeye reduction and reducing shadowing. Most digital cameras do not have a hot shoe where you can attach an off camera flash for special lighting techniques. Also, red eye is difficult to eliminate unless you are using and off camera flash. Red eye is caused by the flash bouncing off of the retina of the eye and that light is reflected back into the camera lens resulting in red eye in the photo. By increasing the angle of the flash, red eye can be eliminated but you can’t do that with built-in flash. Using an off-camera-flash is the only way that can be achieved successfully.

My suggestion would be to use program mode on your digital for 95% of your photographs. There are cases when manual mode is preferred. Let’s say you would like to take a close up photo of your glider and your built in flash is too much. On most digital cameras you can switch to manual mode. You can set the ASA to a lower ASA rating so the camera is fooled by you changing the film speed.

Your digital camera works on film camera principles. So change the film speed to 100 or less. This will also allow the photographer to change the setting in manual mode for focus. A camera which normally focuses at three feet or more can be manually overridden to focus at a shorter distance, in many cases up to several inches. This is a great way to get those close up photos you have been trying to achieve but have not been able to do because they always look out of focus. Consult the owner’s manual of your camera to see how to do it because each camera is different.

There are some cases in which you may need to zoom in as not to scare a skiddish glider. Most digital cameras have an optical zoom and a digital zoom. Always opt for the optical zoom range when photographing subjects. Digital zoom just enlarges the pixilation of a portion of the photo and the resulting photo is blurry or grainy. The optical zoom truly enlarges the subject without enlarging the grain.

You can usually go to 3x without any loss of clarity in the photo. If you need more optical zoom and do not want to use digital zoom, there are filters you can use to achieve this result. They are known as teleconverters. The teleconverters make a normal lens a telephoto lens. They are usually 1.7x to 2x. So say that your digital camera is the equivalent of a 200mm lens in the 3x optical zoom setting. By adding a 2x converter, you now have a 400mm lens capability. T hat is great and the price is relatively low. I have seen them priced as low as $29. That is a lot of capability for a relatively little amount of money.

There are conversely wide angle adapters in the same price range that increase the wide angle zoom for digital cameras. You can check with your camera manufacturer’s website for these items, or check with the retailer where you bought your camera. Nikon and Canon have these components and accessories and Sigma makes some nice accessories that fit several camera brands manufactured by various companies.

After taking the image, you can download the image into various programs supplied by the camera manufacturer or you can buy additional photography programs that have various features. Once the photo is downloaded, you will have numerous printing options. The problem for some with large megapixel cameras is finding a lab that can print of equal quality or for those that print at home, finding a printer to print at equal quality. There are many printing options available today. There are many local and online labs that will print digital photos. You can even email the photos for printing. Local labs are probably a better choice for turnaround time.

Printing photos at home is convenient and easy. Most printers are 1200x 2400 or 2400x 2400 dpi. If your photo resolution is greater than that, the printer can only print up to that resolution. So having a 22 megapixel camera is of very little use. The important thing to remember is to change your printer properties when setting up for photo printing. This is the most common error and why some people do not like their photos printed at home.

Most default printer settings are set up for 600x600 dpi. That is great for printing articles, but not so great for photos. So you need to change your printer settings. Go into printer properties, and click document quality. Choose the highest setting available and many printer properties have a “photo quality” setting. Click that on. Then go to Paper Quality and click on photopaper. That will give you the best print available. It uses more ink but it is well worth it. You can also get photo ink cartridges for some printers, but to be honest with you, I do not see much of a difference. And that difference is not worth the additional cost.

There are a variety of photo papers available and some are more expensive than others. The whiter or brighter the paper, the better the image looks. Photo papers usually are 92+ or brighter. There are some available as high as 110+, but there is very little noticeable difference over 102.

There are many different manufacturers of papers and many different finishes of paper ranging form glossy to canvas and velvet. I would recommend you use a high gloss paper when starting out and then trial and error is your best bet for using other papers. The thickness of the paper is also important. The thicker papers feel more like photo prints and do hold up better than single weight papers. Always opt for the thickest paper you can afford and be sure to change the printer properties to reflect that change.

The advantages of digital photography are turnaround time to print, the ability to delete and retake photos instantly, and printing from home which is always cheaper than using a lab. If you are going to send photos on the internet through email or are adding them to a webpage, you may need to get a program that compresses images. Photos can be stored conveniently on CD or even DVD. There are also external hard drives available that connect to a USB port on your computer if you do not want to take up space on your computer’s hard drive.

If you have any questions or concerns about photography, I am always willing to give help. You can email me by clicking here. To visit my personal webpage, click here.

John (PepPony)

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