Need some thoughts...........new here - pet photography

[Leslie61]

Hi I am new here and short of sounding like a fool, please excuse me if I post in the wrong area.....

I am an avid pet photographer but mainly in ourdoor lighting. I have been asked 2 of our local shelters to do their Santa Paws pictures which of course will be inside.

I have a D7000 and a prime 35mm 1:1.8g & sigma 17-70mm 1:2.8-4 lens. Usually I shoot in Apeture but would like to do the shots in Manual................need some advise on which lens you thoughts are and what settings for everything. Thanks and sorry for sounding like a fool but indoor is not my thing. Thanks a million!

[Andrew1]

RICHARD! Hey, where's Richard?

[Manfred M]

I'd have to agree with Andrew; send Richard (rpcrowe) a message. He is the resident dog photography expert on this site, and does a lot of his shots indoors with studio lights.

[rpcrowe]

Hi Leslie,

Welcome to CiC. I am sorry that I did not see your posting earlier and I hope that I am not too late to help you. I have a bit of experience in dog photography, both indoors and outdoors.

It would help if I knew a bit more about your upcoming project, Santa Paws. Is that going to be with a Santa Holding the dog or dogs or is this going to be dog portraits to help the shelter place the dogs?

Photography is extremely important in rescue work since most of the contacts lately are generated through Internet postings; and a good picture, which will generate interest, is in reality a life and death matter for shelter dogs. The following information is based on the premise that we are discussing portraits. If this is Santa with the dog pictures, it is really not a lot different than shooting a kid with Santa....

I am sorry if this discourse wanders about a bit...

What type of lighting will you be using? I shoot with three studio strobes and that is ideal. This is my setup for smaller dogs, for larger dogs, I simply use a bigger table or have the dogs on the floor. Since I am an old and arthritic geezer, I can't kneel or squat and so I use a roll-around office chair as my shooting platform so I can be at eye level with the dog.



Small dog:


Larger dogs:


I don't always shoot with three studio lights. In fact, I quite often shoot with a single hotshoe mounted strobe with a Joe Demb Diffuser Reflector to modify the light. This provides very good "quick and dirty" lighting without any harsh shadows; and with bounced flash, there is no "blue-eye" as there is often with direct flash bouncing back from the dogs retina.

Lately, I have been shooting the majority of my dog portraits in the landscape format and crop a vertical or square format out of the landscape view. I used to shoot verticals and was burned when a company wanted to use some of my images for a calendar and I had no horizontal images to provide. I shoot in RAW and then do all my corrections except for final cropping and output sharpening - then save the image as a PSD master file. From that I can crop any way I want and apply final output sharpening which is determined by the use for which I have for the images...

A decent background is important. I can do a very good job using a length of fleece. I have a collection of fleece in various colors to go well with the color of the dogs coat. I also sometimes use a painted canvas background. I used a piece of velveteen for the background of the shot of the white Maltese - however, velvet can attract dust and needs a lot of post processing to clean up. I used a painted canvas BG for the boxer with some green fleece covering the table on which she was sitting...

I like to use a longer lens and usually shoot with my 70-200mm f/4L IS. If I were you, I would select the 17-70mm and shoot near the longer end. This reduces distortion as it does in people portraits.

The following are with single flash bounced and a fleece background - I simply threw the fleece over an arm chair and sat the dog in the seat...





White dogs can be difficult, colored dogs are easier...



I occasionally use props...



Puppies are cute but are often difficult, if not impossible to capture without a helper to place them and keep them placed...



I would not shoot with available light if at all possible. It is serendipitous that available light is good for dog or any kind of portraits. It seldom is. Additionally, you will often lack catch-lights in the eyes of dogs photographed under available light and color balance can become very problematic, especially if the lighting is mixed.

I shoot with my camera on manual and use 1/60 second @ f/4 which gives me some decent selective focus ability. However, I have my hotshoe flash on ETTL which gives me good exposure. Aperture priority is another decent way to shoot when using a hotshoe flash. When I shoot with my studio strobes, I always use manual at 1/60 second (my old-time White Lightning strobes sync at 1/60) and determine the f/stop either by eyeballing or by using my meter.

I always have someone helping me to control the dog. I use a thin show lead which I will clone out with Photoshop. I also do some minimal editing but, I don't want to change the dogs appearance. But, if the dog has a problem side (one leg or one eye for example) I try to face that side dog away from the camera. However, this dog had only one eye and no sight in that. However, her expression was quite nice...



I use a squeaker between my teeth to attract the dogs attention. Sometimes this will evoke some animation in the dog...



I always shoot in RAW and use a WhiBal card to determine color balance unless I am photographing a white dog. With white dogs, I use their coat for my white balance target since I want the coat of the dog to be correct above all other areas in the image. If the white coat is white, I don't care about the rest of the colors.

I will often need to post process out colored reflections from fleece on which a white dog is standing or sitting. I do this by both desaturating those areas and by cloning from the white coat using about 40% intensity. I clean up below the white dog's eyes, if necessary. basically with the same technique which works pretty well. Some colors like hot pink reflect terribly and are difficult to correct. A light blue might suit most color dogs. Black is nice for white dogs. This was a show dog, not a rescue dog.



BTW: A Vellux blanket can be used as a great backdrop for either large or small dogs. A king size blanket can be tacked or taped to a wall and be used as a seamless background for large dogs or it can be spread over a chair or over two chairs that are backed up to a table for smaller dogs. The blanket is not terribly expensive and can be used as a BG for human portraits also. It wrinkles or creases very little and won't pick up lint. A light blue would suffice for most color dogs...

Shooting black or dark colored dogs can be a problem, however a bounced flash with a reflector/diffuser will often provide highlights in the coat.



If you have the luxury of multiple lights, crossed lighting is something to try.

If you have a dog that has been shaved down a sweater will make the dog look less "naked"



Treats are a great helper when photographing dogs and a nice treat can often help the dog relax.

Finally, the difficulty of shooting multiple dogs increases geometrically. These are show leads that I mentioned earlier.



But the results are often quite neat...

[Leslie61]

Wow! Your pictures are amazing and thank you so much for all the information. I like your ideas for the backdrops and all the info you have given me. What ISO do you use or just let it find itself? Also again short of sounding silly " I would select the 17-70mm and shoot near the longer end. This reduces distortion as it does in people portraits" what do you mean by shoot near the longer end? I have never adjusted with a white card.............perhaps that is something that I should invest in?

I currently photograph at 2 of our local shelters for their adds and pictures on their website as well as petfinder. The dog pictures I generally take outdoors and the cats I do indoors, they have lovely rooms set up for them.

After I read about the lighting I was a bit scared lol. I found how easy it is to use amazon now............lights/umbrella's are on their way but won't get here soon enough for my 1st Santa photo set this next Thursday. I will have to figure the lights out when I get them and with the darker days coming I am sure it will be well worth it in the end. I have the shelter animals and if it wasn't for my job in the way I would do it 5 days a week.
If this picture uploaded here is one of the cats that I did for the shelter.

The first date I have is next Thursday. There are a lot of windows in the building and very bright lighting. I have my husbands garage lights which I can take with me as they are on stands and will improvise with.

Then on the weekend I have 2 dates at a shelter back to back. Most of these will be dogs I am sure with the exception of possibly some cats but nothing too out of the ordinary.
Not too sure on the lighting in the area at the shelter where I will be doing this but again won't have my lights yet. I am going to use a light/mid color grey sheet for the backdrop. Santa will be at all the venues with the animals. At the end of the month I will be doing the BIG one where there will be a line up all day long- this is the one that is rather freaking me out so to speak as there will be horses, goats, pigs, dogs, cats, snakes etc. All the pictures are people coming out with their pets to support the SPCA by making their donation and receiving a picture back.

[rpcrowe]

Leslie,
Congratulations on your dedication. Your cat image was lovely. People want to see the faces of the pets that they intend to adopt.

Regarding my comment on shooting near the long end of your lens - I would expect that you would have the least distortion if you shot between 50mm and 70mm and the most distortion if you used the wider focal lengths of that lens. The distortion is actually caused by shooting up close and with the longer focal lengths, you generally shoot from a longer distance. This will minimize the appearance of a long nose...

A sheet would be O.K. but, a Vellux blanket makes a better background - fewer wrinkles and creases to worry about.

If you are using a WhiBal or another white balance card, one technique is to photograph that card once in each lighting setup. It doesn't matter if you shoot the card before or after shooting the series. Then when you open the images in Camera Raw, simply choose the white balance eye dropper (at the top of the Camera Raw display) and drop it on the image with the white card. If you have selected all of the images, they will all be closely color balanced. Final tweaking is up to you. Sometimes the most accurate color balance is not the most flattering...

I don't know how the shelter uses your images, but we do most of our posting on www.petfinder.com. I like a vivid color background because it is easily noticed when people are scrolling through the various dogs... My blue fleece shows up quite nicely...

While the lavender, red and purple also show up nicely. I will occasionally use brown when the occasion arises...


Petfinder allows us to post three images... I like to have one face shot, one standing shot and one sitting shot.

Occasionally, I end up with a different shot like this:


I like to keep my dog as large as possible in the image. It's a secret to attracting people to the site's thumbnail size images.

Additionally, I think framing the shot adds appeal and separates my shots from others posted on that site. It pleases me when people say that as soon as they look at our images they know the dog is from Maltese Rescue due to the quality of the shots. It is really unfortunate how bad some of the images are and the poor dogs suffer because of it.

My problem is that I am not able to shoot all our dogs because our organization is all over Southern California. I do try to give pointers to people who shoot with their phones and P&S cameras. I also attempt to rescue many of the images using photoshop....

If you use your hubbie's garage lights be very careful because they can get very hot and can be a fire or burn hazard. Taping the electric cords to the floor will prevent people from tripping over the cords and any resulting accident. Scotch markets a brand of duct tape that has a very low residual residue. It is not terrible expensive and it is available in my local Home Depot and I would expect that it is also available in your local store. More expensive and not as widely available is photographic gaffer's tape.

If you peruse the video tutorials here: http://www.prophotolife.com/video-library/ you mighht find a couple of tips that may make life easier for you.

One thing I might suggest when shooting the people and their pets is to place them a distance from the background so that shadows don't impact the image...

BTW: what kind of lights are you expecting?

Other advice should be obvious, have enough memory and camera batteries available. If you can make a test run in the location in which the shooting will take place, that is a plus...

The "big one" will be difficult due to the different sizes of animals....

[jcuknz]

I would comment on the garage lights .... AOK if they are the only light source or very much predominent source but don't mix them with the "very bright daylight coming in through large windows" they have a VERY different colour temperature. If I felt the lighting was too contrasty I would use the daylight with my onboard flash cut back by a stop or so in the 'flash EV Menu' or however your camera does it.

Those lights you got from Amazon will have the same problem* perhaps even more marketly so... I would guess worklights at approaching 4000degrees Kelvin Studio hot lights at 3200K and that daylight at upward from 6000K ... and the eye can detect a 150K shift. The onboard flash is probably about 5500K and a little warmer than the daylight.
*unless you have splurged on electronic flash versions which will match the on-board ... but if they are flash units how will you trigger them?

Just noticed you say the lighting is very bright ... flourescent which could be a problem ... I would hope that others come in on that aspect ... on the othjer hand what looks bright to us often is not that bright in photographic terms, why photographers use flash rather than hotlights these days.

Cute as Richard's photos are did you notice how much more alive those are with reflections of lights in the eyes ? One solution here is to add them with the paintbrush tool at perhaps 2 or 3 pixel size in editing ... remember reading about a guy who in colour slide days stuck a fine needle through the eyes for the light to shine through

My apology for voicing all these possible problems but Richard has concentrated on getting great images instead of warning you also of possible technical pitfalls.

Richards tape comes called Duck Tape and Duct Tape and I have a roll of each and used it to protect electric cords as he suggests, not for photograhy but public exhibitions cords going vertically to ceiling beams and then taped along the beams.

[AB26]

Wow! Your pictures are amazing and thank you so much for all the information.

The undisputed master of doggy photography at work.

[xpatUSA]

Richards tape comes called Duck Tape and Duct Tape and I have a roll of each and used it to protect electric cords as he suggests, not for photograhy but public exhibitions cords going vertically to ceiling beams and then taped along the beams.

I think Richard was referring to a more gentle type of tape. On the other hand, duct tape (RAF slang "bodge tape") sticks like [censored] to a blanket, leaves a residue which is impervious to all known solvents and becomes a permanent sticky feature on your fingers. If used on paint or carpet, it will take away large amounts of either when removed.

Duct Tape . . . the Handymans friend . . .

[rpcrowe]

A couple of additional things to mention... Thanks guys and gals for tweaking my brain...

I seldom have to add catch-lights because the Flip-It portion of my Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro projects enough light forward to create the catch-lights. The Flash Diffuser Pro is my favorite modifier for hotshoe flashes and I have tried them all.

www.dembflashproducts.com

Recently, I purchased a Chinese knock-off of the Flash Diffuser Pro which I found on eBay for about five U.S. Dollars (it appears only occasionally on that site and I can't find it to reference at this time). I purchased it to test so that I can recommend or not recommend this product to our Maltese Rescue volunteers who shoot with hotshoe flashes. It works quite well but, I prefer the Demb model because of the way the Velcro is attached to the Flip-It portion of the rig, However, either unit provides very nice lighting.

I have never done this but, I wonder how the garage lights would world in a bounce mode. Again, as JUUKNZ mentions, there could be problems with mixing various types of lighting. Flash will often overwhelm the lighting in any room, especially if you are shooting close to your subject. However, continuous lighting is not usually as bright as flash. BTW: this should be self-evident but, don't try to use a flammable modifier with your garage lights. Umbrellas or softboxes can go up in flame quite quickly.

When post processing my image, I will often use the Photoshop burn tool to darken the black nose a bit or to darken the dogs eyes...

BTW: Although I occasionally use a prop, I don't want props which are too complicated and which take away from my dog images. I am competing with other rescuers for interest in dogs appearing in thumbnail size images. If the image is filled up with flowers, etc. it is difficult to see the dog.

Here is a link to one of our postings on petfinder

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/27739387/

Here is a link to our Maltese Rescue California website...

http://www.malteserescuecalifornia.org/index.html