Short shoot for Texas Power House Bullys

[SoulfulRecover]

A buddy at work has a breeding business and wanted me to get some pictures for him. Ive never tried to showcase an animal before but he seemed pretty ecstatic about the photos.

These are the two that I liked out of the lot.





Please feel free to critique them

I think they are kinda boring but he was looking to show of the size and shape of the animal more than anything. He wanted them to look muscular and stout.

 

[iPhoto17]

those are amazing, but what the the aperture setting on the first one? the back legs are blurred out a little bit

 

[WesternGuy]

Muscular and stout he got. The first one, only the dog's face/head appears to be in focus - if he likes it, then that's what counts. The second one, if you shoot this type of image again, I would suggest that you see if you can get the dog to raise his head so that it is not staring into the ground in front of him, but rather into the distance beyond him. My 0.02¢ FWIW.
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WesternGuy

 

[SoulfulRecover]

those are amazing, but what the the aperture setting on the first one? the back legs are blurred out a little bit

f1.8. Next time Ill end up shooting f4 I think. I was worried about it a bit but looking at the images on the camera screen I didnt notice how shallow the DoF was. Should have assumed though.

Muscular and stout he got. The first one, only the dog's face/head appears to be in focus - if he likes it, then that's what counts. The second one, if you shoot this type of image again, I would suggest that you see if you can get the dog to raise his head so that it is not staring into the ground in front of him, but rather into the distance beyond him. My 0.02¢ FWIW.
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WesternGuy

Haha it was pretty hard to get him to keep his head up :/ I kept trying to get him to look at me by making noises and the owner kept trying to get him to look up haha. He was pretty scared of my reflector and he was pretty hot too it seemed.

But thank you for the feed back. Itll help for next time for sure. He was saying he may do some more on Sunday if we have the time to.

 

[iPhoto17]

1.8? wow, i wish i had a lens that opened up that wide.......yeah, depending how bright it was outside and if your client wanted it all in focus you couldve gone with f4 maybe eve f8 or f9

 

[SoulfulRecover]

its the nikkor 50mm f1.8. you can find it for ~100 bucks

 

[iPhoto17]

100 dollars, really? what would be the difference in using a 50mm prime and just setting my 18-55 to 50? besides the obvious 1.8 f stop to it

 

[tirediron]

100 dollars, really? what would be the difference in using a 50mm prime and just setting my 18-55 to 50? besides the obvious 1.8 f stop to it

Please do not hijack the thread with off-topic questions. You can use the forum's search feature to read some of the many threads already posted on this topic, or start a new one in the appropriate forum if you desire.

 

[tirediron]

I would also suggest choosing a more suitable background. This one is very softly focused and relatively non-distracting, but I think an even, homogenous one would make the images even stronger.

 

[SoulfulRecover]

Prime lenses are known to be very sharp, crisp, weigh less, cheaper and force you to engage your subject more.

Of course all of this is relative. You can have muddy junk prime lenses.

In addition to this one I'd like to get a 35mm prime and an 85mm prime. I'd skip the 85mm if my 135mm was auto focus.


Edit:
Thank you tirediron. There was a building I had considered to use as the background (metal uniform blank siding) but it was in very harsh direct sunlight so I opted for the greenery.