Canine Agility Stylized Shots

[NorthernFocus]

I worked on some agility photos for a client who runs golden retrievers. Cleaned up the BG a bit and ran a Topaz preset on them plus a few misc tweaks.



I set up to shoot backlit with the sun coming through the red nylon chute. It worked great for lighter and neutral colored dogs. Not so good for the black ones.





And then I blended a jump series and formatted it so she could us it as a Facebook cover photo. Debated on whether to have the tails or heads covered up. Finally my technical bent won out and I put the last over top of the first.

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[Trina]

You have some lovely shots.... I especially like the 3rd shot. The shoot is still open and the dog is beautiful and so relaxed looking. You have a very nice series of shots of the pup going over the jump. I could see the format would be a dilemma I would prefer to see the dogs head I think...I really enjoy the topaz filters... they do some wonderful things.. This series of shots brings back some wonderful memories... my pup loved the shoots, tunnels and jumps...

[rpcrowe]

Great shots. I especially like the multiple exposure. That is very creative.

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the comments, folks. That red chute really made for some nice images that day. Particularly with the GRs it worked well. Plus they aren't the fastest breed so I was able to time them pretty well coming out. That third shot is my favorite of this group.

On the jump sequence, unfortunately the head and tail in those two shots were aligned. Stacked the other way it looked weird too. Like the dog had a mohawk haircut or something. I've slowed my fps down a bit since I took that sequence. If I try it again it should work out better on the spacing. Particularly with faster dogs.

[boulderwood]

Nice shots Dan. What settings were you using? Which focus setting?

Joanne

[NorthernFocus]

Nice shots Dan. What settings were you using? Which focus setting?

Joanne

Hi, Joanne. I typically shoot in manual exposure mode with continuous AF/single focus point. If I recall it was a partly cloudy day and as the clouds drifted across the sun it was driving me crazy changing setting in mid-run so I switched to auto exposure later in the day. So on the shots with the red chute I was using aperture priority with +2/3 EV compensation for the back lighting.

By the way, I see you live in Wolfville, NS. I took one of my favorite boat photos ever there.

[boulderwood]

What a beautiful shot! Love the light..very iconic.

I was at an agility trial last weekend and had a heck of a time getting the dogs in focus. I was able to freeze the motion with the shutter speed but more often than not the dog itself would be out of focus. I tried AF-C and AF-S...perhaps it is a matter of practice.

I tried to focus on a part of the course where I knew the dog would be (over a jump,out of the chute/tunnel/tire) but often ended up with a portion of the equipment in focus and the dog out ))

I will keep on trying ...

Joanne

[kdoc856]

Great work, Dan. The blended image worked out beautifully and is something I've not attempted, but you given me an "itch".

I noticed in the top three shots that the grass has a lot of yellow in it. I've discovered in LR4 that when I raise the vibrance, the yellow seems to increase disproportionately. Fiddling around I found I can correct it by selectively reducing the green luminance channel. Just wondered if it might prove helpful with these shots.

[NorthernFocus]

...I noticed in the top three shots that the grass has a lot of yellow in it. I've discovered in LR4 that when I raise the vibrance, the yellow seems to increase disproportionately. Fiddling around I found I can correct it by selectively reducing the green luminance channel. Just wondered if it might prove helpful with these shots.

Thanks, Kevin. Actually on these shots I intended to have that neon effect. Trying to be a bit artsy and put energy into the images reflective of the subject matter. Not intended to look like real grass

[Karm Redland]

Dan, I like your blended dog series and you boat shot. I think some of the other pics the red and green are over saturated -- I know you did it on purpose.

karm

[NorthernFocus]

...I think some of the other pics the red and green are over saturated -- I know you did it on purpose.

karm

Well.... mostly on purpose. I just linked the copies on my website that are for printing. So the brightness and saturation are kicked up for print. I normally link to proofs on my site that are optimized for web. In this case I linked to the actual pritables. So I agree the saturation is a bit over the top on the images three of these. I did want the neon look but these are a bit bright. The jumping sequence is formatted for web.