CockersOnline Forum
Off Topic => Photography => Topic started by: curly_locks on March 02, 2012, 03:53:37 PM
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There are so many brilliant doggy photographers on COL I hope someone has some tips for me ;) I recently bought my first DSLR camera and am doing my very best to get out of the auto modes, I've just about got the hang of photographing the kids, I can manage the odd decent shot of the cats but I seem to be struggling to get a good portait type shot of Sonny (I'll be asking about action shots soon I'm sure :005:) he is just so... black! I seem to end up with lots of dark, featureless, blobs >:( which is shame because he has such a lovely face. So what should I be doing please lovely COLers?
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sorry no tips, but as i have two little black darlings, felt the need to comment so that i can follow this thread.......lets hope some keen photographers are reading this too...xxx
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Ha ha, tell me about it!!
I can only get a decent shot of Sally if she stays absolutely rock still, and we are outside in full daylight. Otherwise it's black blobs all the way!
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There are so many brilliant doggy photographers on COL I hope someone has some tips for me ;) I recently bought my first DSLR camera and am doing my very best to get out of the auto modes, I've just about got the hang of photographing the kids, I can manage the odd decent shot of the cats but I seem to be struggling to get a good portait type shot of Sonny (I'll be asking about action shots soon I'm sure :005:) he is just so... black! I seem to end up with lots of dark, featureless, blobs >:( which is shame because he has such a lovely face. So what should I be doing please lovely COLers?
Take pictures only under the sun!! Daylight always gives better pics!
(http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/rr198/Deyna84/Danni/045.jpg) (http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/rr198/Deyna84/Danni/033-1.jpg)
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Oh tell me about it. I've yet to take a good shot of Toby. As mentioned above, it does help enormously if you can take shots in daylight as opposed to using the flash. I'll be watching this thread for any more tips.
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Cameras work by recording light and unfortunately black dogs are an absence of light which makes them difficult to capture. As you've got a DSLR you're off to a great start, you're going to need to dip into some of the settings to improve your shots. In full auto mode, the camera will examine the entire scene and choose appropriate settings to expose the entire scene correctly. The problem with this approach is that it will underexpose some areas (this is where there is not enough light) and overexpose others (too much light). I've written a bit about this sort of thing with pictures on the following page, scroll down a bit to underexposure, overexposure and the histogram:
http://forum.techpond.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1114
Exposure compensation - as mentioned in the page above, exposure compensation is a way of adjusting the settings the camera has chosen slightly without having to choose all the settings yourself. It means you can compensate for scenes which are too dark (underexposed) or too bright (overexposed). To compensate for a dark black dog (underexposure) you need to increase your exposure which means dialling positive (+) exposure compensation. This may be available in the auto modes but may not be in which case you need to dip into the semi-automatic modes like Aperture-priority (A). In this case, if you dial in positive exposure compensation it will slow down the camera shutter so it gathers more light and therefore more detail on the black dog.
Metering is how the camera chooses a suitable exposure for the scene and by default it will try and evaluate the entire scene to try and get a balanced exposure. In some cases when you have a subject that is particularly bright or dark this won't work as it means while the general photo may be well exposed, your subject isn't which is no use. To get around this cameras offer mutiple metering modes to allow you to choose the mode that fits your scene best. Spot metering takes the exposure at just one point in the scene which would be ususally too much for a dark dog as it usually makes for an exposure which is far too slow. Instead a metering mode which gives more priority to the centre of the image (such as centre-weighted) will usually do the job fairly well, I'm being a bit vague here because there's no standard names for any of this and each camera manufacturer offers different modes and functionalities.
In both these cases you need to be aware that because you're slowing down the exposure, your picture is more likely to suffer from motion blur and also the background may end up looking a bit too bright (overexposed). As mentioned in the post above, getting a well lit day is a big help as it makes it easier to get the detail out of the black coat. You can use a flash to help you out but you have to make sure the camera compensates for the darker dog otherwise you end up with a very black dog devoid of detail. Because Alfie is a blue roan, just like Jake before him it mucks up the auto-exposure because some parts are bright and reflective whereas other parts are very dark which can give very mixed results from one moment to the next.
Shooting in raw can be a big help as well, this is sort of like a digital negative - the camera saves an exact copy of the output from the sensor but doesn't touch it allowing you to then develop it yourself. One of the main advantages of raw files is that you can make small corrections to the exposure which means you can bring some detail out of both underexposed and overexposed areas. Some cameras ship with raw developer software and some don't, the better raw developers aren't free although I can appreciate that's probably a few steps down the line for you yet.
John
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I've got lots of black blobs !! I have even more trouble printing them.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one with a blob for a pet :005:
Thanks for the tips, and John thanks for taking the time to write such an informative post - I'll have a look at your link when I have the time. I was just reading about exposure compensation and metering modes, at the moment I have lots of information but not much of it is making any actual sense, hopefully with a bit of practice and a bit more reading it'll all come together for me.
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Don't worry about feeling overwhelmed as that's how everyone feels, there's a lot to pick up but thanks to digital cameras being instant it's now much easier to fiddle around and get a good feel for what the settings do. I have so many pictures of Jake and Alfie because they were both good portraits allowing me to try out new lenses and bodies extensively so when I needed to use the cameras I had a much better idea of what settings to use.
The human eye does make photography more difficult as we are so good at picking up detail in very low light, getting the colour right and seeing detail everywhere even in bright sunlight and dark areas. Cameras unfortunately are nowhere near as good so it takes a bit of practice to think about scenes as the camera sees them, for example I'm sitting in a lit room at the moment as it's night time and to me everything seems quite bright and easy to see. However I know for the camera it's not bright at all and I'm going to need to choose settings for poor lighting and if I want to shoot a black dog it's going to be tougher as there's little light as there is and adjust from there.
I wrote a camera guide explaining the technical terms but people said it didn't really help them so instead I tried to go the other way, show common mistakes and what settings needed to be changed to sort them. All the pictures are my own to show that this was all a learning curve for me at one point and still is when I've any new equipment.
John
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With the first picture all i had was the flash...In the 2/3 picture i bounce a light off a white sheet of paper....This is what is needed ..In a studio no dowt they have the equipment to do so....Chris
(http://i546.photobucket.com/albums/hh409/seaangler/2012cindypeggygemma081.jpg)
(http://i546.photobucket.com/albums/hh409/seaangler/2012cindypeggygemma082.jpg)
(http://i546.photobucket.com/albums/hh409/seaangler/2012cindypeggygemma079.jpg)
But you can see the diference with extra light..Even a fine hair can been seen..On her nose...
peggy does not like gemma getting to near to me...hangbags...lol
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A simple technique that often works (but no promises...).
Take your photos in daylight, use a forced flash (so the flash fires everytime) but don't stand too close to the subject. This way, the flash will fill in the dark shadows without overpowering the whole exposure. Using a DSLR you can zoom in so that you can still get the right composition.
Happy snappin' :D
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Hi everyone,
Hope you don't mind but I have a black dog too, so thanks for posting a fab question, I shall follow with interest. Maybe we could put our pics somewhere where we can all see them and see how we are getting on
X
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Great idea Kaz, I've started a thread here http://www.cockersonline.co.uk/discuss/index.php?topic=91873.0 with some pictures I took today to get us started. Please feel free to add your own
blobs dogs ;)
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Sorry not been online for a few weeks, just catching up on the thread, great idea, off to look at the pics now and upload some of Jess
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Get them wet :005:
(http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh255/bout-time2/kiz-2.jpg)
Or set your camera to black and white :D
(http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh255/bout-time2/DSC00944.jpg)
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(http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh255/bout-time2/DSC00944.jpg)
I love this piccie, what a gorgeous dog! :luv:
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(http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh255/bout-time2/DSC00944.jpg)
I love this piccie, what a gorgeous dog! :luv:
Aww thanks, Kiara's mine the photo's courtesy of OH :luv:
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this one isn't awful- but then i think it was cloudy and she was small enough to lean over to stop the light taking over
(http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u483/kgolding89/16weeks18.jpg)
and had good light indoors for this one, it's a little blurry as it's just off my phone but it's better than alot i've taken.
(http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u483/kgolding89/7months.jpg)
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To give some examples of what I was talking about earlier, firstly this is a before and after of the classic underexposed photo - in this case the camera has tried to balance the very bright snow and the comparatively dark Alfie:
(http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-TsXRJj9/0/L/Alfiebeforafter-L.jpg)
(Bigger version here - http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-TsXRJj9/0/O/Alfiebeforafter.jpg)
I took this picture as a raw file and then used 'fill light' in Lightroom to lift the dark areas without overexposing the rest of the picture to bring the detail back in Alfie's face and body. There's also a White Balance shift as I went for a warmer setting, you can only really do this with a large sensor camera (Digital SLR, micro 4/3, NEX etc.)
I noticed when shooting how underexposed Alfie was against the snow so I set the camera's exposure compensation to +1 stop which in aperture priority mode forces the camera to shoot at half the shutter speed which gives more detail on the dark subjects like Alfie but overexposing other parts of the scene. This shot is an error because I didn't remove the exposure compensation so the camera has overexposed the whole scene:
(http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-zhHTTJz/0/L/Alfiebeforeafter2-L.jpg)
(Bigger version here - http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-zhHTTJz/0/O/Alfiebeforeafter2.jpg)
In this case I did the opposite action of fill light and instead used the recovery tool to bring back some of the brighter areas which I've managed to get away with mostly because most of the scene is darker, you can see in the after picture the bright areas at the back particularly in the middle are still too bright. This is a problem in shots like this one:
(http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/Alfie/Alfie-Snow-April-2012/i-RvQLc9n/0/L/DSC7787-L.jpg)
Or this one:
(http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/Alfie/Alfie-Snow-April-2012/i-39ZSJHp/0/L/DSC7784-L.jpg)
Alfie's exposure is fine straight out of the camera but the snow is far too bright and it can't be brought back, it's so over exposed the detail has been lost so even pushing the raw file as much as possible does very little.
John