Thanks to Southern Wolf, I built a light box today. I'm still learning how to take pictures in it, but here are a few test pictures. They are OK, but seem under exposed and don't show enough color. I'll get it though.

What do you think?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3162/3086448696_70735afe60_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3285/3086453604_d6451da82c_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3047/3085611039_1af05fe0b5_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3202/3086448828_d983175362_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3135/3086448760_40ae1de5ab_o.jpg

Looking good Larry, the second shots came out best for me.... they need some fine tuning, but so do mine.... gotta play around with the ISO settings he mentioned etc.

looking really good

Second does look the best. I could tell better if I had those guys in my hands ;)

Yea, it's going to take some practice. I tried with fill flash and without. I tried different exposure settings too. I'll play around with it more tomorrow.

Larry your welcome....

Chattin with Larry in chat as I type this...

1st pic... does look a bit underexposed to me... but easily enough fixed in photoshop.

2nd pic... way overexposed... but does give the snake a nice color

3rd pic... I pulled up in PS to check the histogram... actually looks pretty good... and with minor touch ups... it can really pop. GOOD JOB

4th pic... color looks real close to the 3rd... so exposure is prob good there too.

5th pic... I'm gonna take a shot in the dark... since the face is in focus.. and the back of the body is not.... me guesses the apature was prob close to f/5.6 if you stop down the lens to say f/11 the whole snake should be in sharp focus.

Like I mentioned in chat (so everyone else can try as well).... if you move the lights down to about 6-8 inches from the bottom.. you should be able to get rid of the shadows under the snake.... if that happens to throw shadows on the background....then you need to light it up with another light to remove those shadows.... this will be one of those areas.. where you have to play with it a bit.

Since I normally shoot on some sort of substrate... this hasnt been a big deal for me.... but I do like your outcome... so I will have to try it. Thanks for the idea.

Hopefully I didnt confuse you too much tonight in chat.... have fun with it... and if you have any other questions... let me know... we can chat again.