New Lens.

So I haven't posted anything in ages. The wife quite keenly posts daily, I'm more of a once a year sort of person.

Anyway, so now we have the dog and possibly more relevant for this blog a very nice 70-200mm. I've hired it in the past for weddings and was so impressed. It does have the downside of being so massive, heavy and generally precious that It's not going to social events.

Which leaves it for weddings and dography.

Chekhov is his name, chasing squirrels and drinking dirty water is this game.

After literally thousands of shots of him running at me I can count the number of unfocused shots on one hand, truly amazing. When those missed I was annoyed, then realised I bought this lens for weddings - and generally brides don't run at 30mph towards you through woodland; so still fit for purpose.

The cracking F2.8 means you can be a bit casual about composing the background of images, which is good if you're in a hurry, forgetful or working with a dog (or bride) who doesn't take instructions well.

Photo Project 1, 18. Texture or Pattern

Its a pattern, amazingly complicated... and normally dogs don't stay still enough to notice this detail. Luckily for me Jazz was fast asleep at the time.

Photo Project 1, 10. Fur

Well fur was always going to be a pet related post...

Here is Jazz, she's a collie who loves to play... to get a good picture of her staying still it requires a good 20minute run before she'll consider posing. Even then I only got a couple of shots before she came to lick the camera some more.

If there wasn't quite enough fluff on Jazz's fur then this is Princess Lilly, she looks cute but harbours the mind of a twisted criminal villain. Again, not a pet to stay still for long... stretching was a weirdly still pose!

If you want to take a 'good' pet picture try these simple tips:

• Most importantly, get down to eye level. It sounds simple, but it makes such a difference.
• If you can manage this without them licking the camera or running towards you you're on to a winning shot
• Keep backgrounds neutral (unlike Lilly pictured above).
• Keep the rule of thirds.
• Rule of thirds on Wikipedia
• Don't use the flash, certainty not a direct flash.
• To keep the shutter speed fast use a bright sunlight, not backlit obliviously.

Puppy Flynn - Complete

So I mentioned before I was putting off Flynn’s pictures, well it finally happened... I went through the thousand pictures and came up with 25 pictures I felt worthy of sharing.

For a slightly different post I thought I would do a pre and post edit of each picture. Although nearly every picture had the same effect done, a slight soft focus with Photoshop curves to boost the autumn colours.

 

Here I liked the picture but I was changing focal length and it blurred, adding a vintage look to poor quality pictures at least makes it look intentional.

Slight rotation, crop and removal of a tree.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked this picture - but the background wasn't great... I tried to bring focus in on Flynn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flynn getting playful.

 

This photo wasn't as crisp as I would like, but in my defence it's very hard to focus on a puppy running at you using F1.8... (bad workman blaming tools here).

Increasing the colours works really well on the browned leaves too.

 

Puppy Flynn

Flynn, he's a lovely collie puppy - I'd been wanting to go around to Andy's house for some time to photograph him playing. Last month a sunny day came along while we were both free so I headed over.

Flynn lost interest in the ball and started coming for the camera, again.

Unfortunately I’ve been putting off the processing of these images for some time now, I was there for a couple of hours and now have 1,059 pictures to worry about. In my humble opinion pet photographers have a harder time than those of us who shoot weddings. Honestly, this bundle of fluff wouldn’t stay still. He also hasn’t go the art of catching balls yet, but it’s just as cute when they bounce off his nose.

There will be a proper post to follow when I get around to getting my head around the pictures.