Dog on dog... (first post)

controld

Hey all,

Been a lurker forever and this is my first attempt at posting a shot. It's not a bird so I apologize in advance ;-) I've been learning the camera thing for about 6 months now...

Any tips would be appreciated. This is shot with a 70-300 on a Canon 10D. It was fairly sunny out and I left the camera in Aperture priority. The shot looks soft to me - is it slightly out of focus (maybe grass in front is slighty more infocus)? Thanks for any C&C you can provide to a newbie.

There are my dogs playing at the park - the smaller one feels his mission in life is too irritate the larger one to no end.

CookieS

I know how you feel, I wish there was a Pets and animals section. so This will have to be I just warned the others, Lots of Dogs and horses from me

I think what may have happend inyour shot is in aperature pioriy on that lens, you were probably on the longer side or fairly open. so Your shutter lag looks like it may have been around 200 or so , hence the motion blur on the dogs. It also possible your focus did not get completly focused or else the fast moving targets had moved outside your 'depth of field " where your focus was .

rallymaniac

i like the picture, despite the fact that the dogs got blured out.
I think it might've been even slower than 1/200 sec. If you want to take pictures of fast moving objects/animals, it may be best to set your camera to the shuter priority rather than aperature priority. If you want to "freeze" the movement just turn the shuter speed up i think 1/200 would be sufficient in this case. However if you want to show the movement of your subject without making it blury, you need to select slower shuter speed, something about 1/125 or 1/90 should be enough. If you do so make sure you follow your subject with the camera (panning) and just depress the shuter release button while you're still moving your camera to follow the subject. This will make the subject fairly sharp while bluring the background.
This pix would also be nicer with bigger zoom.
Good luck and practice a lot.

Rohirrim

I agree that the most likely problem with the focus is motion blur. Can you post your EXIF info? That may help with suggestions.

Don't feel bad about posting pictures of critters other than birds. This is the Wildlife forum and all critters are welcome . Bird photography just happens to be the most popular with some of us.

Welcome to dgrin

controld

rallymaniac wrote:

This pix would also be nicer with bigger zoom.
Good luck and practice a lot.

Thanks for the C&C guys/gals. By "bigger zoom" do you mean a bigger lens, hence a tighter shot? Not sure I am getting your meaning... thanks.

I guess I failed in getting the EXIF info embedded in the pictures - have to work on that too - gotta go dig up the shutter speed from the original DNG.

- Mike

controld

Rohirrim wrote:

Can you post your EXIF info? That may help with suggestions.

Thanks! EXIF info:

Shutter: 1/750
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 100
Focal: 190mm

Some of the grass in front looks crisper - maybe the auto focus was off target...

- Mike

Rohirrim

controld wrote:

Thanks! EXIF info:

Shutter: 1/750
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 100
Focal: 190mm

Some of the grass in front looks crisper - maybe the auto focus was off target...

- Mike

The shutter speed is probably too slow for action. Look's like the dog's were running pretty fast. I think it would be better to keep the shutter speed to >1/1000 by bumping up the ISO. What focus method were you using? For action shots I usually use AI-servo with the center focus point active.

CookieS

Rohirrim wrote:

The shutter speed is probably too slow for action. Look's like the dog's were running pretty fast. I think it would be better to keep the shutter speed to >1/1000 by bumping up the ISO. What focus method were you using? For action shots I usually use AI-servo with the center focus point active.

Jeez, I would have guessed much slower,( and i did ) Ihave shot indoor horse shows and stopped action at shutter speeds of 250 with just a bit of leg blur. of course Dogs are pretty dang fast, and if you werent panning ,,,,,, nuf said. thanks for the info. :

controld

Rohirrim wrote:

The shutter speed is probably too slow for action. Look's like the dog's were running pretty fast. I think it would be better to keep the shutter speed to >1/1000 by bumping up the ISO. What focus method were you using? For action shots I usually use AI-servo with the center focus point active.

Thanks for the input. I suppose there is no harm in going up to 200 or 400. I also never thought of the AI-servo option... that would make a lot of sense. Thanks again! I can use that advice in my attempts to shoot hockey too... I haven't succeeded in gettting anything worth posting yet - it's always a little out of focus - that may help resolve that problem. I am already at ISO 800-1600 there so no way to speed up the shutter without selling an organ to get a faster lens.

- Mike

rallymaniac

controld wrote:

Thanks for the C&C guys/gals. By "bigger zoom" do you mean a bigger lens, hence a tighter shot? Not sure I am getting your meaning... thanks.

I guess I failed in getting the EXIF info embedded in the pictures - have to work on that too - gotta go dig up the shutter speed from the original DNG.

- Mike

yes, i was talking about tighter shot :
and wow, i would've never guessed that it was 1/750 :wow