How do you take a good shot of a "very" black dog?

KathyD

KathyD

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http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/gallery/data/1042/Indiana.jpg

This is my friend's dog, Indiana - a very cute Labradoodle! Trouble is he is very, very black and it takes a lot of work in photoshop to make him look as cute on paper as he is in real life. Any tips for how to take a good shot of black dogs.

I have also put a couple of other doggie pics on my album in the galley section here. Any comments on how I can improve always gratefully received. (but be gentle I am new to this game!)

Kx
 
Don't know what camera you're using but, if you've set it on some sort of "auto" or "program" mode, if you can, try setting the exposure to underexpose by about -0.7EV possibly even -1.0EV. The camera's metering is being fooled into thinking it's darkly illuminated and compensates by over-exposing. You gotta "beat the meter".
 
A very good question - I'm often called on to take photos of two black labradores. I often struggle to focus, and unless they're in direct sunlight then I've got no hope really, as higher ISO's tend to produce more noise on their black coats.
In your picture, it looks like you've used the onboard flash. This has a tendancy to bring out the shininess of their coats more, but because it's onboard the light comes straight back at the camera. If possible, an external flash bounced off the ceiling or on an off-shoe cable would do a much better job with the lighting.

Shooting in RAW will of course give you the most flexibility in your post-processing and enable you to correct exposure as mentioned above by chuckles.
 
Ask him to put his tongue away as that is being metered to and probably making the shot darker aswell.
Well that and any light background
 
Don't feel too bad. I've taken hundreds of our black cat and not got that many I'm happy with. Only thing harder to get right than black fur is black and white fur!

The novelty frames thing soon wears off. They always look good when you first see them but don't look so impressive when you look back on them later. Simple is usually best.
 
I have a nightmare getting pics of my grey and white cat!

grrr

think its just trial and error.. and good light
 
I have an all black cocker spaniel (American variety) and really the trick I've used is to not bother unless the lighting is perfect. I have many many a pic where he looks like an odd shaped black blob and nothing more!
 
do what chuckles says (y)
 
Thanks for all the advice, just need to get myself back to Cornwall to try again!

Kx
 
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