Available light–Inside my garage it’s more like available darkness. See where I placed my reflector, a sunshade, the kind you use in the dashboard of your car. See the scene without the reflector.

My 3 kittens can entertain me for hours with their antics.

As you might expect, I’ve been taking lots of pictures and videos of them with my Canon G11.

Right now they’re still confined to the garage. This patsy is still holding strong. If I can, they’ll stay outdoor cats. But we’ll see…

The garage has been their world all these 6 week. It’s been quiet, safe and, though small, they’ve found lots of things to occupy themselves with.

The trouble with the garage? The clutter in there makes photography a major challenge. The light levels are also usually too low. So far everything I’ve shot has been moments when they’re calm.

As the days go by, I’ve been introducing them to the outdoors a little at a time.

That requires manpower because they run off so quickly.

I can’t be watching them and concentrating in the view finder at the same time because the latter makes me “tunnel visioned.”

My best bet is to bring them into the yard one at a time.

As with most point-and-shoot cameras, there is a lag.

High Sync Speed–Outdoors, I used my Canon STE-2 and my Canon 430EX Speedlight (on 1/8th power placed on the left) to enable high shutter speed synch so I could shoot at 1/500 sec with a wide open aperture to control depth-of-field.

So anticipation, patience and some luck doesn’t hurt.

With black and white cats, or as with most black and white subjects, contrast is my biggest headache.

Inside the garage, without some way to boost the shadows, all I see are the eyes and the lighter shades of grey.

Outdoors in the bright sun, I can’t hold detail in their white coats and their eyes.

That’s what happens in situations where there is just too much contrast—the proverbial problem photographers battle with all the time.

Without supplemental lighting, I can’t possibly hold detail in the face, so I won’t be able to see the eyes.

My best results have been to bring the kittens out of that contrasty light.

Failing that, I have to set up a translucent diffuser.

It’s a simpler solution than trying to set up my flash to light a small confined area or to guess where the kittens are going to be in my yard.

Here’s a short video clip of the fur balls.