Dog of a shoot

[RobNZ]

Went to a local waterfall today with my family and a friend and his dog.
I think I managed to get a couple keepers,C&C welcomed.

Thanks

This shot, although a little soft on the dog captures his personality regarding playing fetch, 100% focus on the stick.

Classic pose? Had to stage this one a little, asked the owner to get the dog to sit, then I had to call to him to have him look in my direction.

Ahh the stick!!! This dog will not quit once you start playing fetch, the dog and I were playing tug of war the day before with a small nylon frisbee and he readjusted his bite...right into my thumb (my bad for not being more careful), one very powerful but beautifully natured beast.

Thanks for looking. All pics taken with the Canon 50mm 1.8.

 

[Tulsa]

not bad. Love the dog, Full Pit? pit mix? He could me the brother to my two dogs.

 

[RobNZ]

not bad. Love the dog, Full Pit? pit mix? He could me the brother to my two dogs.

He is a cross of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and thought to be an American Bulldog.

Cheers.

 

[PerfectlyFlawed]

i really like number 2 pic. Super cute puppy!

 

[jennyjen]

cute dog.

 

[themedicine]

Ah, i thought he was some sort of boxer mix! Good looking pup.
You nailed the biggest issue with the first one being focus for sure.
The second one might could use a little cropping to get rid of all that top.
The last too are cool action shots, its good that it looks like you got right down there with him! They look a bit snapshotty, but that's not to say I could do any better just hiking around with my family and such!
I like em though, very cool day for you!

 

[creisinger]

Nice shots.

#2 is a wonderful portrait. I love the composition! Well done.

You might have noticed that all shots are overexposed a bit. The white patches (white fur) especially on the dog's head are all blown out.

This is probably not a big deal to the owner who will be happy to have shots like these but in the future you might want to double check your meter. Best chance is to switch over to bracketing the exposure. Just hold the shutter release button down and you quickly get 2 or 3 exposures with different shutter speeds. That could significantly increase the chances that one exposure is right on.

If you shot those in RAW you also have more possibilities to compensate slightly over exposed shots.

Another detail. Especially in #2 I got distracted by the red tag on the collar. The red color is in complete contrast to the entire scene. It's a small but important detail.

You will learn over time to watch out for these things. I believe it wouldn't have been a big problem to remove it for the shoot and it would have made a huge difference in the overall appearance of the shots.

You can easily fix that in post. Simply duplicate the layer and desaturate it. Delete/erase everything out except the tag (which is now gray).

Or clone it out completely.

Keep going!

 

[AUS-10]

Flash shouldn't have been on. Makes some weird reflections and shadows that shouldnt be there. Auto mode?

 

[Tulsa]

not bad. Love the dog, Full Pit? pit mix? He could me the brother to my two dogs.

He is a cross of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and thought to be an American Bulldog.

Cheers.

Cool, I am not an expert on the breeds, but I think thats pretty much the same dogs as Pit Bulls just fancy names, prolly some small diferences, anyway, I like the pictures, they are fun, not anything amazing, but they are ok.

 

[RobNZ]

Flash shouldn't have been on. Makes some weird reflections and shadows that shouldnt be there. Auto mode?

Av mode, had no choice but to use my external flash, photo doesnt show it but it was very low light, in a deep ravine with trees creating a full canopy and no direct light, so best I could do at the time (I think?) was to use my external flash to keep the shutter speed at 200 and the ISO fairly low for noise and to expose the background. I dont like using flash, because of the odd reflections as you say and that it tends to flatten the shot.

The dog is constantly moving!! lol.

creisinger: thanks for that, yep I did know that his white patches were being blown out at the time (RAW+Jpeg) and did what I could at the time (and post) with my noob knowledge and skills to try and reduce as much as I could.

Ive recropped as you have suggested and removed the red tag. Thanks.

themedicine: yes I did get as low as I could for those shots

 

[creisinger]

Yes, without the tag it looks much better!

The crop is a bit too tight for my taste.
The space above the dog makes it look nice. It was just some space to the left of the dog that is too much IMO.

Something like this:

 

[RobNZ]

Yes, without the tag it looks much better!

The crop is a bit too tight for my taste.
The space above the dog makes it look nice. It was just some space to the left of the dog that is too much IMO.

Now thats the crop my instinct said to do for the reasons you mentioned, which is good, but the 2nd crop was about following direction as I interpereted it

Thanks again.

 

[swatanter_k]

2nd pic was very nice

 

[thoughtcryme]

I like 2 and 4.
Very good IMO.
I feel like the colors could be more vibrant though.
They don't have that pop.