Better photos get better opinions

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djinwa

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Perhaps make this thread a sticky note at top?

Have noticed for a long time that poor photos get less useful opinions on cattle on these boards. "Could be a bad photo, but......"

Here is an example, and as Nesikep mentioned, they should have taken better photos. Amazing how people selling cattle can't take more time to do so.
https://cattletoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=118485

If you expect people to spend hours giving opinions, might be good to spend more than 2 seconds on a photo.

The standard setting on cell phone cameras is for wide angle. So photos taken that way will be distorted. Whatever part is nearest will be bigger - heads or rear or whatever. Sometimes they appear to be standing uphill.

If using a cell phone, need to back up and zoom in to avoid distortion.

Also need to crouch down at shoulder height, I believe.

You need the sun behind you. If shooting into the sun, you will just get a silhouette, especially with black cattle.

Have them stand in a normal pose, not feet way under them. I've seen bull photos where they just stood up and were stretching and they were condemned as post legged.

That's all I know - I'll let the experts correct or add more.
 
Excellent thread. I can take a picture of a calf, go in the house to look at it and it doesn't even look like the calf. I had not heard that the cell phone is set for wide angle. How do you change that?
 
If I'm trying to take the best pic for someone interested in buying one I'll try to get square to the animal and drop to one knee. I'm not a pro by any definition but that seems to work better for me.
 
A lot of people make the mistake of standing and taking a picture looking down at the animal. Your eye height should be near level with the mid cross section of the animal.
 
Cell phone camera FOV..field of view is wide angle, but the focal length/width is not. They try to emulate a 35mm but most are a lot closer to 30mm. Backing up nd zooming in with my cell phone results in a very small image.
 
What I most often see happen is not on the focusing part, but on the editing part. A picture gets taken, then cropped to exclude extraneous objects or landscape and then the user sez "oh..now the picture is too small" and they then resize the cropped image to increase it's size and that's where the distortion comes in, either in pizel size or overall appearance..or both.
Most editing software keeps the length and width about the same (aspect ratio) but sometimes that ratio gets skewed due to editing and the animal or object is too long for it's height or vice versa.
 
I am guilty as charged. I love taking pictures of cattle and seeing cattle, but most of the time my pictures make my calves look terrible. I've started getting better about just posting pictures I feel do my cattle justice. It truly takes hours of watching them and getting the right shot.

I had a friend tell me I was horrible and photographing cattle, and that my bad shots would do far more damage than 1 good one could correct. So from there on I have tried to do better.
 
Here's one I took today to send to a potential buyer. Hated to send this one as I couldn't talk this calf into standing better. I'll probably just end up with a muddy knee for all my efforts. :lol:

 
slick4591 said:
Here's one I took today to send to a potential buyer. Hated to send this one as I couldn't talk this calf into standing better. I'll probably just end up with a muddy knee for all my efforts. :lol:


HeHe. Yep. I was just saying the same thing on another thread. That is not a great shot. :cboy:
 
Jeanne - Simme Valley said:
Yep, Slick - he looks really post legged - even has the "normal" stance of a post-legged animal - stretched. They are more comfortable "stretched".

I have about decided they all look posted-legged when they stop and stand. Of course, that is when you snap the picture.
 
Jeanne - Simme Valley said:
Yep, Slick - he looks really post legged - even has the "normal" stance of a post-legged animal - stretched. They are more comfortable "stretched".

A different pic shows something a little different.

 
Good thread and hopefully backboneranch chimes in. He takes the best pictures I've seen on here.
Another tip is to make sure you tap the screen (iPhone) to get it focused on the animal before you shoot it.
 
ditch the phone and use a cheap 35 millimeter digital....much better photos....yeah you have to download them....

I have a little Canon that is probably 10 or 12 years old and it is much easier to use than the one in my fancy new phone...and I think it takes better pictures....
 

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