Chew toy.

[roll.4.life]

I was at a friends house and we were tring to get a photo of the dog doing its basketball trick (which failed miserably as it was ammused in other ways) Although i managed to get a photo of what it was doing in the mean time.



Details.
Shutter - 1/250
F/stop - F/4
ISO - 200
Suppressed flash

[Saralonde]

I like the diagonal angle to your portrait. The main thing that doesn't work for me is that the focus was not on the eyes/face of the dog. Was he busy moving his head? That might be the problem. It looks like the focus was on the plant behind him.

[phlyersphan]

I agree with Saralonde - I like the angle and composition but would rather see the focus on the dog's head (or eyes if possible). Cute dog!

[clockdoc]

Have you experimented with flash fill on your camera? May help to open the shadows and darker areas.

[roll.4.life]

Thanks for the critique.

Im not sure why the focus was on the tree in the background? It was auto focussed so i guess it chose there.

Also, when the shot was taken a flash lit up the whole area in front and made it over exposed, and when the shutter was higher with flash it made little noticeable difference to the picture.

[clockdoc]

Autofocus cameras can have a mind of their own, particularly when focusing on furry creatures as many models of cameras look for a line of contrast on which to focus. I don't know what camera you are using but raising the shutter speed won't have any effec on the flash as its 'speed' creates the stopping power that the shutter would normally do. Flash exposure is controlled by the aperture. So if the scene was washed out your would have to close the aperture down to allow less light in. Since this cuts the light down, to get the same relative exposure for the ambient daylight, you would have to use a slower shutter speed. There are no hard and fast rules here so the best I can offer is to experiment with these and see how it works out. See if you camera also may have a "fill-flash" setting that takes ambient light into consideration.