My French Bulldog...Chloe

[jax314]

Taking pictures when she's running at me is hard...it seems like a lot of my shots turn out blurry, even though I'm using AF-C with my D5000. Any suggestions?

This one I think turned out okay. I cropped a bit and then sharpened a tad....



Camera: Nikon D5000
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash


Does the composition work? Any suggestions for other action pics of my pup?

Thanks,

[miyukisarah]

Your dog's face brings me so much joy I wish you knew! xD If you turn up your ISO to 400 it'll help you capture her action better without the blur without getting a lot of noise.

I do wish she was running towards the sun, then you wouldn't have the shadows. They're distracting to me. I want to be able to see the life in both of those eyes! Great capture though, the movement of her legs, and the tongue, everything. It's great.

[Weird Girl]

AHHH! I love her! I am a HUGE frenchie lover so I had to post on here I agree that the shadows hurt the photo but I love that you captured her personality and that tongue!! I had to go ahead and share some pictures of my frenchies too! My male (fawn) is Pierre and my female (pie bald) is Penny. I can't wait to see more pictures!

[karen_s]

It is hard and honestly think you did a GREAT job on this one. Nice perspective (low), decent light (do agree direct might be better head on but not bad as you still have detail in the darks), nice composition, good color, great face, ...

I have tried this myself and it took a lot of experimenting to get just a few keepers. For my dogs, I found I need a minimum of 1/1250 shutter speed for my Golden and shoot for 1/2000 for my Yellow Lab (the lab is crazy fast), and preferably faster if the light allows. But that's not all I found, I also discovered aperture matters. At 200mm, considering the cameras distance from your subject, the DOF can become rather shallow and my dogs can move in and out of the 'in focus' range rather fast. (Here's an online DOF calculator to get an idea of how the aperture affects your shots ... Online Depth of Field Calculator) So, I also shoot for narrower apertures like f/9 or so. It just takes a lot of experimenting to find a good combo of settings.

And, I don't know anything about Nikon but if you have a back button focus option, you might give that a try. (On the Canon side, it is great for sports and action and I use it all the time now). You might experiment with using different focal points too. I typically use the center point on my camera but occasionally give the others a try (an attempt to focus on the head rather than it landing on the neck). I've read the center is the fastest and most accurate but I have had some success with the outer points on occasion.