One eared dog - please critique

[New to photography]

Ok, I'll post this again and hopefully I have it in the right place and the right size this time! I reduced it to medium on photobucket - is that okay?

Anway, it would be great to know what you think of this picture - i took it on action mode - is that okay here - or do you have to take everything manually? any opinions would be appreciated - i'm new to all this and want to learn to take better pictures!

[karen_s]

I'm new here to the forums but am pretty sure that shooting in Action Mode is OK, so don't sweat it. Action mode is a wonderful place to start. As you grow in photography, you will quickly move to the more manual modes such as shutter priority, which is what I would use to shoot this kind of shot. Dogs move fast and jerk their heads and paws and tails and I have found the faster the shutter the better. When shooting my dog, I dial in 1000 plus if the light allows.

The composition is nice. You might experiment with some tighter crops just for fun. A tighter crop might bring the viewer in closer and feel a bit more a part of the action rather than a bystander. Try a vertical crop too, see if it changes the feel. You may still like this one best but it never hurts to play.

Once thing you want to start looking for when you shoot is the horizon line and where it cuts thru the image. In this shot it cuts thru that one ear and ends up being a minor distraction. Since the fence is slightly out of focus it's not a deal breaker by any means but a slightly higher vantage point or much lower one would take care of it.

Overall you got a real nice action shot. The boxers expression is great and the one ear is priceless. And I can tell that little guy has got some spunk :-) Really nice work for being new to photography.

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by New to photography

Anway, it would be great to know what you think of this picture - i took it on action mode - is that okay here - or do you have to take everything manually?

You're perfectly fine using whatever mode you're comfortable with. I know that it sounds like everyone uses manual mode on photography forums sometimes, but It's definitely not any sort of requirement!

As far as the shot, I'm sure it's difficult catching the right pose at the right time, but one thing I'd consider is leaving space ahead of the dogs. It's kind of tricky in this one because the dogs are facing to the left side of the frame, but you can tell the movement is heading to the right. So I'd try to leave room to the right so they have "room to move" as it were.

[Jim Poor]

We need to see your exif data, or at a minimum, focal length, shutter speed, aperture and ISO to give better feedback.

You can't tell it from the smaller version here, but having seen the larger image in your other post, I can say that it is significantly out of focus.

On a positive note, the expression is great!

I disagree that the dogs need to be moving to the right. One of them is facing left after all, but a crop from the left or the addition of a little space to the right would be more balanced and could eliminate the distraction of the dark blob (tree?) in the upper left.

A lower shooting position would have been a nice touch as well.

[New to photography]

Aw thank you so much. I just found this now. Some really interesting comments you have all made - my goodness. I'm not too sure what you mean about the horizon line? We did something in photography class where we looked at a noughts and crosses type grid and the teacher told us to try and get the main focus of the picture of the intersections of the grid - is this what you mean? She didn't refer to anything as a horizon line though - I would have thought the horizon line changes as the sun sets/rises - what do I know though I'm very new to all this......LOL....please bear with me and my stupidity!

I did think about chopping the picture around but then I thought I would leave it exactly as I took it and see what others thought.

Yes, it was an interesting point you make about the space - leaving space around the dogs to give the picture somewhere to move, I never thought of that tbh, so thanks for bringing that up.

[New to photography]

Originally Posted by Jim Poor

We need to see your exif data, or at a minimum, focal length, shutter speed, aperture and ISO to give better feedback.

You can't tell it from the smaller version here, but having seen the larger image in your other post, I can say that it is significantly out of focus.

On a positive note, the expression is great!

I disagree that the dogs need to be moving to the right. One of them is facing left after all, but a crop from the left or the addition of a little space to the right would be more balanced and could eliminate the distraction of the dark blob (tree?) in the upper left.

A lower shooting position would have been a nice touch as well.

LOL - what on earth is all this exif data????? and where on earth do I find that? I have a photobucket account - is that info on there? or is it on the camera somewhere? I have no idea where to find this info - sorry - please advise.

I was quite amazed to read it was "significantly out of focus" - my goodness - how can you tell? seriously, I mean I am only looking at the dogs and they don't look out to me - but then again I know next to nothing about all this! Any help here would be appreciated - thank you for all your help and opinions anyway - they are all very helpful.