Black lab- any advice?

[WillW]

Hi,

Every so often I will try and take some more photo's of our dog. Inevitably they are a bunch of blurry pics and bad poses. Two that were okish though.

So, I find it quite hard to take pictures of the dog. Any advice?

 

[lizzy23]

This is actually something I'm not tOo bad at, I tend to shoot in av mode on continuous, obviously at as high a shutter speed as quick as possible, what I have found is that I get better photos if I use a lens with a longer focal length, and tend to use my 75 - 300 so that I'm not on top of them more natural and less posed. The real key is to keep practicing

 

[HopefulM]

it's so hard to take good pics of your dog....

I find that lots of treats work, or a bright sunny day and a wide aperture (low f number) work best, along with a low (on their level or lower) viewpoint or quite high (like 'the dog' style pics) work well.

otherwise put your camera onto continuous shooting mode.... you never know what you might get and don't forget to take as many as you can!

have a look at my flickr - it might give you some inspiration

 

[gabia]

i like first one !

 

[tdodd]

My dog is dark brown. I used to have a black dog before. I've always aimed to position myself on the sunny side of the dog whether shooting a static pose or action. It seems to work for me.

This is Zippy, sadly no longer with us....

and Jazz....

Shooting into the shadow side of a dark dog is not, in my experience, going to make things easy or deliver the best results. Having the sun on your side of the subject helps to get light into the eyes and create a sense of life and vitality. YMMV.

 

[WillW]

I'm not intentionally trying to get shots on the darker side, it's just how some of them turn out as I can't control where the dog goes.

Thanks for your comments!

 

[suggs]

i think its just the lighting you need to work on, because they have shiny coats any strong light can just blow the highlights out and your dog looks wet which wont help either.

your pic does look like the exposure is a bit out in general, do you use your histogram and blinkies to check the exposure ?


heres a black and white shot i took of my dog a few days ago.

DSC_7331bw by harrylessman, on Flickr

 

[WillW]

I know lighting is annoying with dogs, as said, my dog isn't the posing kind. If I'm using standard autofocus, my camera tends to get confused with the black fur, and focus on a patch of fur. I try and focus a bit more specifically using the center spot, but even when my dog is sat still she is constantly moving her head.

The good in focus shots I have, have bad angles for the head. The shots I have where the head and ears are in the perfect position, it's blurry. I guess just more patience then and try more shots?

My dog was wet, one of the pictures shows her in a pond. However, the wet fur with the sun shining on it often came out incredibly sharp and detailed, the problem there is that the dogs head and eyes weren't in focus.

My dog is young, and doesn't stay still for very long.

 

[suggs]

yeah shooting a lot of things is 99 percent luck, i tend to always focus on the eyes if possible with animals and people.

if you use the blinkies and histogram after taking the shot you will instantly no if its over or under exposed and the blinkies will flash on the hots spots. then just a case of upping of lowering the speed or aperture to suit for the next shot..

 

[WillW]

yeah shooting a lot of things is 99 percent luck, i tend to always focus on the eyes if possible with animals and people.

if you use the blinkies and histogram after taking the shot you will instantly no if its over or under exposed and the blinkies will flash on the hots spots. then just a case of upping of lowering the speed or aperture to suit for the next shot..

Do you mean on the camera? Or in Photoshop? I don't know what blinkies is

 

[suggs]

there on the camera, presuming you have them as maybe not all cameras do.
when you bring the pic up on the lcd screen if the blinkies are turned on they will flash on any parts of the scene that are overexposed. say on your first pic the light patches on his head would flash on and off, if a lot of the image is flashing then you need to either increase the speed or a higher F number to reduce the light coming in, but with every thing theres limitations and if the subject is very backlit then the shot just wont work and a flash would be needed hence why you see people with there flashes on in daylight..

 

[WillW]

I'm pretty sure I can make the histogram come up, I will take a look in the settings.

 

[tdodd]

I'm not intentionally trying to get shots on the darker side, it's just how some of them turn out as I can't control where the dog goes.

Thanks for your comments!

You can certainly control where you go. If you plan the shot then work out the best position to set up for success. You or a helper might try encouraging the dog to go where you want, with a treat or a ball. Or you could simply wait and time your shot for when the dog does go where you want it to. But you still need to be in the right position to shoot from too.

If you're just taking spur of the moment snaps then that's different.

If you can, then always focus on the eyes for a "portrait". So long as the eyes are sharp it's a question of taste how much more of the dog is within the DOF. Look at my third picture of Jazz, above. One eye sharp, not much else. I focused on that eye. Maybe some won't like the shallow DOF. Personally I do. But I wouldn't shoot every shot like that. Fur does not make a good target for AF. Relatively speaking, eyes do, or for a longer shot of a dog in action try for the teeth/tongue. Dark fur is a problem.