My 7 dwarfs <3

[Erin Loves Dwarf Hamsters]

Oh, I use different cameras and lenses. For my own hams mostly I use my Canon 500D with the cheap kit lens but I also use an older Fuji 6500fd bridge camera and an older Ricoh Caplio R6 compact camera. Lighting and composition play a much more important part than the camera itself. Eg. in the big IKEA cage I have lighting and that really makes a lot of difference. The rest is just some fiddling with the settings - I usually do some -1/3 exposure compensation and use the flash only as fill light with reduced power.

The shots of the wild hamsters are mostly done with with the Canon and with a nice 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM lens. The body is not as important, I could have used the cheaper 1000series body just as well. I did start with the Fuji back in 2009 and got decent photos but you have to be more patient. An SLR and a good long lens really pay off when photographing wildlife. I dream of a 70-200 f/2.8 but it's so expensive and also quite heavy...

I think lighting is always my downfall :/ My softbox was reccently destroyed durring some furniture moving and I dont have the money for a new one for a long time >.< I dont use Canons any more but I have heard some terrific reviews of the 500D. The Nikon D7000 is what I am currently working towards - a beauty of a cam - with the 80-200mm lens for portraiture but Im using the Lumix FZ38 Bridge while I save up the money and it too requires so much patience it can be very frustrating! Unfortunatly when you have robos and a top shutter speed of only 1/2000 it doesnt get you as far as you'd like :/

I would Love to see your lighting set up in your cages if at all possible? That would be really interesting

[TheFeldhamster]

The light in the cage is really easy - 4 Dioder LED strips from IKEA:

Cage slightly redecorated von tina_6500 auf Flickr
It's just the difference between light coming just from the flash or light coming from the top with only some fill flash light (or even none/just what comes from the room) from the front.

I usually shoot in time priority mode with the flash on the second curtain and often choosing a longer time (eg. 1/50th or longer) to let in more ambient light in addition to the flash. With robos beeing so speedy this might be more difficult, though. And if you can't set the flash to the second curtain it'll look strange - you'd get quite sharp image of the hamster at the starting point and then a smear "running away" from that. Only on the second curtain you'll get pics where the motion unsharp smear "ends" in a sharp pic of the hamster.


For portraits such as this one I used a repurposed "Jäll" hamper from IKEA as a light tent. I used an external flash for this but you could put the light tent under a strong lamp - eg. screw strong bulbs into your dining table lamp and put the thing on top of the table.

Aurum vom Feldhamsterhain von tina_6500 auf Flickr

[KatiePillow]

Also those dioder strips have gone down in price recently! (only slightly, but I looked into how much an expedit would cost me they were quite a bit O.O)

[Gibbs&JackBlack]

What a great bunch of hamsters!

[Elliriyanna]

They are all adorable aurums coat seems very interesting for a dwarf

[Hamtastic]

Beautiful photos of your beautiful hamsters!

[TheFeldhamster]

Thank you all!

EDIT: oh forgot to say - @Elliriyanna: Aurum is a satin Campbell's this is why his coat looks different. He is a black eyed argente satin if I'm not much mistaken. There were also a normal satin (one of the ones I adopted out) and an opal satin (Apolo) in the litter and Aura is also satin. I'm not 100% sure but I think she's lilac fawn satin. I'm not 100% sure because there are very few pics of satin campbells on the net for comparison and the satin changes the color quite a bit. It also makes the color change much more depending on the light so it's really difficult to get a pic where the color looks as it does in reality.

[Elliriyanna]

In the US we never get Satin Dwarfs even satin syrians arent common.

[Erin Loves Dwarf Hamsters]

Ah that last photo is beautiful! I love the DOF of your lens
I always wanted a normal satin Campbells, I was going to get a pair when I got Thistle and Pippy instead You are very lucky to have such beautiful hams!

[TheFeldhamster]

Thank you Erin - btw. that pic was taken with the cheapo 18-55mm kit lens that comes with the Canon, really nothing special. But I was very close so it worked even though the widest aperture at the tele end is only f/5.6. Look at the EXIF on flickr - it was shot at f/5.6. The kit lens actually has quite a good (=short) min. distance. IMHO that cheap lens is much better than most reviews will have you believe - they all make it sound like a totally horrible useless lens - so not true.

@Elli: oh, I didn't know there were no satin campbells in the US. It's really different it even feels different when you stroke their fur. My normal furred ones feel, well, "woolly" But the satin ones feel like... hmmm... a bit like touching a satin or silk dress.