My best friend

[Gord Jones]

I would really welcome some feedback from pet photographers. Be as cruel as you need to be. This was taken with a Sony A37 using a Sony 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 kit lens.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Gord,

Which photo method did you try to use?

Dave

[IzzieK]

I will be back when you upload your shot...in the meantime welcome to CiC. Don't give up...we have all been in your shoes one way or the other...

[rpcrowe]

Hi Gord,

Welcome to CiC, we have lots of pet photographers on this site!

[Gord Jones]

Hi Dave,

I went to "Post new thread" and typed in my piece, and then down below uploaded (successfully, I thought) the picture I wanted but it never showed up. I'll try again on this comment. It says "Success!" again. Let's see what happens when I hit "Post Quick Reply".

Clearly I missed a step. Try this.

Yay! It worked. Have at it. I want to know everything.

[Stagecoach]

Welcome to CiC Gord.

The first rule of any animal photography is that the eye/eyes must be sharp, you appear to have miss focussed here or it's suffering from camera movement due to the lowish shutter speed.

Grahame

[Cantab]

Gord, welcome to CiC. You have a nice looking dog.

[rpcrowe]

You have shot this from the level of the dog's eyes and the background is unobtrusive which are good starting points...

Grahame mentions that the eyes should be sharp and I will certainly agree with that.

Is your buddy an American Eskimo? The whites in the dog's coat seem to be blown out. Shooting all white dogs (as well as all black dogs) is a difficult assignment. When I first started shooting all white Maltese, I bracketed my exposures until I gained experience in how to expose to maintain texture and not to blow the highlights

Here is what I mean. This is not a B&W conversion. There just isn't much color in the image...

[IzzieK]

Looks like an American Eskimo all right, Richard. Beautiful dog -- I used to have one of those when I was young-er. As others had already said, your image is soft-ish. I suppose you can do a re-shoot?

[Shadowman]

Nice effort.

[Gord Jones]

He's a Samoyed. And my most cooperative subject.

[bnnrcn]

Welcome Gord Yes , his eyes look soft but he is a beautiful dog .

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Gord,

The missed step is one quite a few people miss here when they start

I agree with suggestions so far made by others.

Have at it. I want to know everything.

OK, one aspect not mentioned so far is the composition, I'd suggest a crop of the left hand side to remove about 10% image width. At the moment, you have the eyes "looking out of frame", so moving the subject to the left (of a reduced width image) helps with this.

Welcome to the CiC forums, Dave

[Gord Jones]

What do you think of this one? I've tried to sharpen it up a bit in Lightroom and I've cropped off some of the left side.

[Dave Humphries]

Ah yes, that is much, much better Gord.

Don't be jealous if I say I like your best friend.

Cheers, Dave

[Gord Jones]

I'm not jealous. He has so much love in him there's more than enough for everyone. Thanks very much for your help. I'm sure I'll be calling on you again.