Two wuff wuff pictures. C and C please

[Davejl]

I've never tried taking dog pictures before, but when I asked this lady's owner if she objected to photos, he said she loved them. (The other week I encountered a dog which wouldn't walk past me to reach its owner and was informed that it was because the dog hated cameras! And I wasn't even attempting to/intending to snap it)





Canon 70D; Canon 24mm EF-S, f4, 1/125 sec

[rpcrowe]

Normally, I like my dog pictures shot from a lower (dog's eye) level and I normally shoot these from a bit further using a longer focal length to avoid the distortion inherent with a wide angle at a close distance.

Controlling the dog - especially a strange dog is pretty difficult! I know the difficulties in shooting dogs but, I prefer not to have a portion of a human in the frame. This is not always possible...

As with human portraits, I try not to cut off parts of the dog when shooting.

It's really great when the dog is trained a bit and can follow minimal voice commands such as "sit", "down", etc... Of course, I never met a dog who understood the command, "etc."

[Davejl]

Thank you Richard. I had not expected to take any pictures of dogs today. I went out, sun forecast, to maybe get some street shots, but the weather was poor, and the shots I actually got were not of anything I'd had in mind, though I think that the lighting conditions were probably better for what I did get.
In fact, if I'd taken a longer lens I might well also have got a shot of a squirrel tucking into a mince pie

[Shadowman]

Nicely exposed captures.

[madcrow]

I think the dog is camara shy, looks a little sheepish. Two nice images.

[Davejl]

I think the dog is camara shy, looks a little sheepish. Two nice images.

I don't know much about dogs but her owner tells me that she loves having her picture taken. I think that she just looks a bit glum even when she isn't because she seems very affectionate really

[rpcrowe]

Here is a shot, I did today, that violates everything I mentioned. It is the entry shot of "Hunter" a new Maltese rescue puppy. My wife wasn't available to hold the pup on a lead and I had a problem getting him to be still and far enough away to shoot him. He is a lively and lovable puppy who was bound and determined to jump up on my leg.

I basically chased him all over the dog run...



I finally told him "Sit Hunter!" and he sat for a second and then was up trying to jump on me again... Since, this image was only an entry shot to set a baseline of what he looked like when he came to us, I left it at that and accepted the image.

Here is a formal portrait of this puppy for posting on a pet adoption site. I shot it at the dog's eye level using a 70-200mm f/4L IS lens at 116mm on a full frame camera...







Here's a quickie shot of my terrier, Sasha, as I was walking by her with camera in my hand. I noticed her intent gaze...



This one was from just above eye level using 49mm on a Canon 7DII (78.4 mm equivalent) to show that even the focal length of a standard kit lens can work well if it is shot from close to the maximum tele end...

BTW: I always use bounce flash with a reflector/diffuser indoors or out because of the catchlights the flash will produce in the dog's eyes. However, direct flash will often produce the ghostly green-blue eyes of the reflection from the pet's retina. This is akin to red-eye in people.

Bounce flash will not produce the green/blue eyes in dogs just as it won't produce red-eye in people...

If you have problems getting down to the dog's eye level, get the dog up a bit.



I shot this boxer pup on the retaining wall of my back yard. Additionally, I think that the green ice plant makes a nice background...