Help with fast moving... dogs!!!

BeemerChef

OK... call me ignorant! I am slowly learning... but, just like at the rodeo... night time with floodlights... horses moving fast (very fast!), NOT GOOD!!! I also have Spirit playing with other dogs... he will see his girl friend again tomorrow night! House lighting... just cannot get the blurr out of the pictures. I set up manually... what would be a good combination of settings? That would give me a start to comprehend this case...
Thanks a bunch...

Ara & Spirit

SloYerRoll

I'm not sure I follow you.
But since your just starting out. I'd recommend switching your camera to shutter priority. (this is "S" on Nikon and in think it's "TV" on Canon).
This will keep your shutter speed to whatever you set it at and will adjust your aperture accordingly to get a proper exposure.

Keep your shutter speed at 250+ and you should be fine.

If your still getting blurry shots. Put your camera on a "children playing" setting. THis will give you a fast shutter speed and the colors will ususually really pop on this setting as well.

-Jon

BeemerChef

Hi Jon... just went through Bend!!! Spend one month in Halfway... should check it out... my favorite little town.

I understand what you are saying, i will follow the advice. Canon 30D, TV is right!
Be well... Ara & Spirit

LiquidAir

Focusing on fast moving things can be hard too so stopping down to get more depth of field can also help. In direct midday sun, you can shoot at around ISO 100, f/8 and 1/400s which ought to work well for many moving subjects. If you are shooting in the shade, I'd suggest bumping the ISO to around 800 as a starting point so you can keep the apeture stopped down to f/8 and still get a 1/200s to 1/400s shutter speed. Once you get some practice, you'll be able to back of on that ISO setting in some situations if you want to.

ian408

Couple of things working against you here Ara. The biggest is the low light.
Auto focus takes more time more time in low light.

I think Tv setting (shutter priority) will help. Try and keep the shutter speed
up. At least 1 over the focal length of the lens. So for a 50mm lens, 1/50th
of a second. Preferably higher. To get this, you'll want to bump up the ISO.
I think LiquidAir's 800 might be a good starting point.

Best to you and Spirit,
Ian

LiquidAir

Oooo... I hadn't quite registered that you are shooting indoors. That makes life much tougher. How fast is your lens? A bright interior will give you ISO 800, 1/125s & f/2.8 which can give you sharp shots of moving targets with good technique. Shooting moving targets with indoor ambient light, I'd look at either ISO 1600 or 3200 depending on the lens I am shooting with.

Personally, in that kind of light I often use a flash if I want to stop motion. I put an ST-E2 on the camera and set up my 580EX in a corner pointed at the ceiling. For fast focusing I find it is best to turn off the AF assist light and put the both flash and camera in manual mode. Set the flash at 1/4 power and manually adjust the ISO and aperture for proper exposure in the center of the room.

Duffy Pratt

The big problem here is how fast dogs really are. I shoot pictures of my dogs playing all the time. In general, I try to keep the shutter speed at about 640. Things are still OK at 500, but blur definitely starts to become noticeable at anything below 400.

To do this indoors, you will have to shoot with a very fast lens, and with high ISO. But even when you use a fast lens, you will have lots of junkers because of the shallow depth of field. The dogs will move to fast to be sure of getting the part you want in focus, especially when using a wide aperture, like you will need to indoors.

You should also try panning with the dogs as they are moving. Often, even with a slow shutter speed, you will get a picture where the head seems sharp and still, while the limbs and body are blurred. This can be a very nice effect.

In the end, with this kind of shooting, I expect to throw away about 80% of my shots, on mere technical grounds. In the 2+ years I've been shooting my dogs, I have improved my keeper rate some, but I don't ever expect it to be very high.

Duffy