Click - Getting Great Shots of your Cat with a Smartphone

So you want to enter one of the many virtual competitions popping up around the internet but don’t have professional photos or video of your cat. Fear not! If you have a smartphone, you have a camera and can get what you need. Here are a few tips to help.

- By Mary Kolencik

Get a Remote Shutter and Selfie Stick Tripod

The most important tip I can give you for photographing cats is to get a remote for your smartphone. Imagine this scenario— you have a toy in your left hand and your phone in your right, you wave the toy all over and finally get your cat in the perfect pose. Your arms are spread wide. What happens when you move your left hand to the phone to hit the button for the camera? The cat follows the toy! The perfect pose is gone! Oh sure, you can try using the thumb of your hand that is holding the phone to hit the button, but in my experience that is next to impossible to do correctly without camera shake. With a remote shutter in your toy hand, you can click the remote as soon as you have the cat posed the way you want. There’s no need to move the toy hand back to the phone. Using the remote will help you get the shot the instant the cat is in position, and help you avoid camera shake.

If you want to shoot video, get a tripod selfie stick for your phone. If you handle the cat, you either need another person to take the video or you need to stand the phone on something. Standing the phone on something is not as easy as it sounds. You might end up stacking boxes and pillows on your sofa. A tripod selfie stick works better. Set it up, point it where you plan to handle the cat, then get in the shot and use your remote shutter to start the video.