B/W Photo of Pixie the Long Haired Chihuahua in Her Blue Hand Tinted Dress (Click to enlarge)
Posing your pet in the studio can create challenges that shooting in the field doesn’t. It may be a lot easier to have your assistant either throw a ball or toy out and have your dog run after it or have your assistant walk your dog out and call your dog back. Head on action shots can be quite compelling, especially with a long haired subject, as the hair parts in the wind.
You will need to remember to get down on their level, and get a reading on the subject in the range that you intend to shoot, or at the spot you intend to shoot. If you have a camera which can shoot continuously, you’ll have to check the range. Have your assistant walk the subject to the spot or spots. Get your reading, set your camera. Now either throw something your dog wants to chase, or have your assistant walk your subject well past the spot. Use your auto-focus (Read more about focusing in the Focus Problems post). Get a bead on your subject and hold it. If you have a continuous setting (check your manual), just keep shooting. Be prepared for your subject to get larger, the closer s/he comes to you, so keep the focus on eyes. Some of the close up shots will be quite interesting. Oh yeah, you may want to practice rolling out of the way. If your subject is a large animal, obviously don’t lie on the ground, but these head-on shots with moving large animals can work out very well.
Sometimes posing in the studio is a piece of cake…as it was with the adorable Pixie. Come on, don’t you think it was time to show a teeny-tiny someone in a dress? Perhaps she thought she couldn’t move in her clothes, but in any case she did everything we asked. That’s not always the case. Try to get a smaller angle than is pictured here. A 45° angle is perfect. Still, this is pretty sweet. I like to have them looking at the camera, but the off-to-the-side whistful expressions are good as well. This is a black and white with a digitally hand tinted dress. It’s quite easy to do with Photoshop and layers.
Pixie is absolutely precious! Sometime dogs will freeze if they are wearing clothing. I like how you hand tinted the dress. I am trying out Adobe Lightroom and like using it so far although it has been a challenge as well.
I find action shots so hard to do because I have a hard time getting the focus on the eyes. Would you recommend using the moving focus point? In Canon it’s called Al Servo or AI Focus.
Although LR is nice, I find myself slipping back to Adobe Bridge to keyword and organize. As I don’t batch process much, I don’t use LR very much.
When I tint I use my graphics tablet (which I looooove – whoo hoo!) and PS layers and masks.
Action shots are a little challenging, but I’ve seen your work on Flickr and I know you’re getting the hang of it. You decide if you’re going to pan or stop action, and pick your shutter speed accordingly. Slower for panned, faster for stop action. Then use auto focus to grab the head and eyes of your subject. By that I mean, depress your shutter release half-way and hold it while tracking your moving subject.
Both Nikon and Canon have single and continuous servo modes which apply to stationary or moving subjects. AI Servo is for moving subjects for Canon users. Continuous Servo mode for Nikon users.