That is just mean Waldo- those are the cutest kitties ever. I am going to email them to my husband, he has the ultimate disdain for cats- but these adorable photos could change his mind.

Posted by jennifer on 13 May 2008 @ 8pm

I, too, have utter disdain for cats. But here are these ones, living in my house. Because they’re just that cute. :)

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 13 May 2008 @ 8pm

Not fair. My beagle is terrified of all cats so I can’t adopt one, and I’m not supposed to change litter boxes, but these are cuteness personified. I went out of my way not to look at kittens when I was at the SPCA but here they are ;).

Posted by Alison Hymes on 13 May 2008 @ 10pm

Hey, my beagle is terrified of cats, too. Maybe the species is inherently cat-cowardly. :) We’ve tried dropping these kittens onto her curled-up self, to see if some sort of a mothering instinct would take over. Nothin’ doin’.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 14 May 2008 @ 6am

Ohhhhh, SO not fair! I want! But I don’t think my two cats would be very happy with me.

Posted by Megan on 14 May 2008 @ 9am

Oh, man - you’re making me wish I had a bigger house. Best of luck to all your little furry friends, Waldo.

Posted by Andrew on 14 May 2008 @ 10am

I, too, have utter disdain for cats.

Says the guy who belongs to a Flickr group called “Cute Kittens.” ;)

Those are great shots. Are you using the 50mm f/1.8?

Posted by Jon on 14 May 2008 @ 1pm

Says the guy who belongs to a Flickr group called “Cute Kittens.

That’s so I can post pictures of cute kittens, not look at them. Though, actually, I quite like kittens. I just don’t like cats. Kittens are great until they get to be maybe 8-10 weeks old. Then I’m done with them. Which is the great thing about fostering — it’s like a rent-a-cat program. :)

Are you using the 50mm f/1.8?

Yep, you’ve got it. Of the ~90 photos I took yesterday, a grand total of three were usable. The light was low, and I ended up with such shallow depth of focus and slow shutter speeds that I got dozens of blurred pictures of the back of kittens’ heads. :)

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 14 May 2008 @ 2pm

Hey Waldo,

wow, cute cats. like the pics too, big fan of shallow depth of field . . . that 50 1.8 can be a pretty good lens, especially considering the price!

Also whats nice about it on an aps sized sensor is that its a bit telephoto (about 80mm), so you get a bit that flatting of the focal plane.

Posted by Jon Sheridan on 14 May 2008 @ 7pm

Oooh, that last bit I did not know. My single semester of photography classes a few years ago, though very educational and enjoyable, only covered the very basics that you’d expect in Photography 101. :)

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 14 May 2008 @ 7pm

yeah, if you ever see a pic aimed down a street with lots of signs and they all look that they are impossibly close to each other, then the photographer used a telephotolens. Its a great trick, otherwise known as compression.

Also nice for portraits because its good for isolating the subject, the closer your foreground focus the more out of focus the background (the longer the lens the less depth of field: 1.8 on an 80 is closer to 1.4 on a 50) also the image will have less of a feeling of depth because of the compression of the field of focus.

See, photography has been “lying” way before digital manipulation came around!

Posted by Jon Sheridan on 15 May 2008 @ 7am

Oh, I want the sweet little grey one! Okay, a kitten is too big of a commitment for me, but I waaaaant it.

Posted by Jill J. on 20 May 2008 @ 11pm