Doc Holiday, no not the Cowboy

[Tri Danimal]

I found this picture while looking through some photos today. I really like how it captures the playful and potential mischievousness of the puppy. What can I do to make this photo better; when he visits the house next time?



I believe this was taken on fully auto settings and on a mini table top tripod:
Fstop: 5.3
Exposure: 1/80
ISO-400
Focal length: 41mm

[Mark von Kanel]

A more simple background, without the fan ect, Natural light or off cam flash to reduce the harsh shadows and red eye. its not overly sharp so a faster shutter speed than the 1/80 that you used will help but if your using flash then you will be limited by your equipment. Hows that ?

[rpcrowe]

I agree with the cleaner background with no fan or stairs... I would also bounce the flash (if you have a camera with a hotshoe flash which will bounce) and that should remedy the red/blue eye. It's funny, I usually see blue eyes in dogs rather than red eyes. However, border collies (it looks like that is the prominent or only breed of this dog) sometimes have eyes of different colors, with one eye sometimes blue.

It would be difficult to stop a fast and active dog like this using available light indoors. Available light outdoors might be the ticket. I almost always use fill light outdoors (mostly with high speed sync) because it will often provide texture to the coat and catchlghts in the eyes.

I would try to pose the dog in a different position. It is difficult to see where his right leg and rear legs are separated from his body.

It is often easier to have someone controlling the dog for portraits. I have the person handling the dog use a very thin lead which I then photoshop out! My wife has become quite adept at handling dogs for portraits.

Action photos of dogs are different. I would set up the camera in whichever way I would for any fast action. With my canon DSLR cameras, I use Aperture Priority (Av) at or close to the maximum aperture of the lens. I use Ai Servo AF and use a burst drive. I will either have the AF on my 70-200mm f/4L IS lens turned off or on mode-2 which facilitates panning. I will most often shoot at ISO 320 for the best speed to stop action. I don't use fill flash in burst shooting because the flash cannot keep up with the burst. This set up works fine...