Camera height and angle for a pet portrait photo

This page covers where to hold the camera for a pet portrait photo: how high, how far away, which lens to use and which way your pet's face should turn. These choices change the shape of your pet's face in the photo, and the portrait follows the photo. The main pet photo guide covers the other steps, and the article on how to photograph your pet for a portrait gives short tips for the whole session. This page explains the reasons behind the height, the distance and the lens.

Why the height of the camera matters

A phone held at standing height looks down on the top of the head. The forehead and ears fill the top of the photo, the eyes look up, and the chest and legs shrink toward the floor.

A portrait needs the face seen from the front, at the height of the eyes. A photo taken at your pet's eye level gives that view. An American Kennel Club (AKC) article on dog photos quotes a professional photographer who says you need to shoot at eye level for the best results, which means you are often flat on the ground. The Cats Protection volunteer who wrote tips for the UK cat charity gives the same advice for cats: get down to their level for a cat's eye view.

How to get down to eye level

For a large dog sitting on the floor, kneel. For a medium dog or a cat, sit on the floor and lean forward. For a small dog, a puppy or a cat lying down, lie on your stomach and rest your elbows on the floor. Your elbows then hold the phone steady, which also helps with sharp pet photos.

The other choice is to raise your pet. AKC breeders describe putting puppies on a table or platform so the photographer can be at eye level without lying on the ground. They add a safety warning: a platform needs an assistant who is quick enough to stop a puppy falling. A sofa or a low bench works for an adult dog or cat that already likes to sit there. The page on photographing puppies and kittens has more on keeping young animals safe during a session.

Using the places your pet already chooses

Cats often solve the height problem for you. International Cat Care, a cat welfare charity, says many cats prefer higher-up places to sleep, such as their owner's bed, a windowsill or a sofa. A cat curled on the arm of a sofa is already close to the eye level of a person sitting on the floor beside it. Sit down next to that spot, wait until the cat lifts its head, and take the photo from there.

The same charity warns that older cats can find jumping up difficult and can lose their balance on narrow ledges, so use a wide, low place for an older cat. The page on photographing an older dog or cat covers other ways to keep an older pet comfortable.

Distance and the shape of the face

The distance between the phone and your pet changes the shape of the face. Anything close to the lens looks larger than things farther back. A dog's nose is closer to the camera than its eyes and ears, so when the phone is close, the nose grows and the ears shrink.

A photography page from the University of Connecticut explains this. It says wide angle (zoomed out) lenses stretch objects and that objects close to the lens can become distorted, so a wide angle lens would distort the nose and make it look larger than normal. For this reason, it says, portraits of the head and shoulders are usually made with a slight telephoto (zoomed in) lens.

The same page gives two more reasons telephoto lenses are often used for portraits: the background is more likely to be blurred, and less of the background appears behind the subject. Both help a pet portrait photo, because the attention stays on the face.

What this means on a phone

Apple's iPhone guide names three cameras on some models, Ultra Wide, Main and Telephoto, and says that on supported models you can tap 0.5x, 1x, 2.5x, 3x, 4x, 5x or 8x to zoom in or out, depending on the model. The 0.5x setting gives the widest view, and the higher numbers give a closer, zoomed-in view.

For a pet portrait photo:

1. Frame your pet's head and chest at 1x.
2. Tap 2x or 3x, if your phone has that button, and step back again until the framing looks right.
3. Avoid 0.5x for a close portrait. It is the widest lens and stretches whatever is nearest.

Use the lens buttons where your phone has them. An AKC article says zooming in with your fingers on the screen loses some of the crispness in your picture. If your phone has only one lens, stand one or two steps back from your pet and crop the photo later. Apple also says its Lens Correction setting, on by default on supported models, adjusts photos taken with the front camera or the Ultra Wide camera for more natural-looking results.

How much of your pet to include

A portrait usually shows the head and chest, sometimes the front paws. The photo needs to show each of them clearly. An AKC article on dog photos says the dog should fill the frame and not have a lot of empty space around it.

Keep the ears inside the photo as you fill the frame. Leave a small margin of space above the ears, below the chin and on each side of the face. There are two reasons:

• Your pet moves. A margin keeps an ear inside the photo when the head shifts.
• A print is often a different shape from the photo. When the shapes differ, the print trims two edges of the image, and a margin keeps the ears and chin away from those edges.

The shapes in the table come from the print sizes themselves. The guide to art prints and paper explains print shapes and trimming in full.

Upright or sideways

Apple's iPhone guide says the camera offers 1:1, 4:3 and 16:9 shapes, which you choose under Aspect. For a sitting pet, hold the phone upright, because a head and chest are taller than they are wide. For a pet lying stretched out on a sofa, turn the phone sideways. The 16:9 shape is long and narrow, and it leaves more empty space beside a sitting pet, so 4:3 suits most portrait photos.

Which way the face should turn

A portrait needs both eyes, the shape of the muzzle and the markings on the face. A face pointing straight at the camera shows all of these. A face turned partly to one side, so you still see both eyes, adds depth to the muzzle and shows the shape of the head.

AKC breeders describe getting the same front-facing angle for each puppy when they take head shots, even if it takes 100 shots. The same article quotes a breeder who suggests some photos with the dog looking off past you or looking down, because natural, unposed photos can be some of the best. For a portrait, choose a photo where both eyes are open and visible, whichever way the head is turned.

A full side view shows only one eye and half of the face. Keep side views for an album.

Keep the phone level

A phone tilted down or up changes the shape of the face again. Tilted down, the forehead grows. Tilted up, the chin and chest grow.

Apple's guide says you can display a grid and a level on the camera screen to help straighten and compose a shot: turn on Grid and Level under Camera in the Settings app. Google's Pixel help describes framing hints: a yellow line and a white line appear in the middle of the screen and meet when the phone is straight, and an Up/Down indicator appears when you point the phone up or down at your subject.

The Cats Protection volunteer says angles can make an ordinary shot more interesting, and suggests close-ups of the eyes and wide shots that show a cat in a box or on a rug. Those photos are good for an album. For the portrait photo, keep it simple: eye level, a step back, the phone straight, and the face toward you. The pages on photographing dogs and photographing cats explain how to keep your pet in place while you get into position. When you have the photo, the portrait studio takes one image file of up to 5 MB.