January 2017

Camera Questions 

Back in 2013, Chip addressed four common questions readers have when it comes to taking photos of their favorite subject, their Labs! In the March/April 2017 issue, to mail mid-February, Chip will answer a few more questions that are more mobile related. Since that issue will be available very soon, we asked Chip if it would be okay to share again his article from 2013, to which he heartedly agreed. Make sure to share any photos on our Facebook page and tag Chip Laughton so that he can see your work. Have fun! 

“I have the worst time with the perpetual motion Lab tail so I get lots of blur. I suspect I need a better camera than either my phone or the pocket Canon.”

A really happy tail can be hard to stop, as they seem like they are going a million miles a minute. There are two solutions: take more pictures when your Lab is sleeping, or shoot with a faster shutter speed. This is just like shooting action shots of your Lab running. To get a tack-sharp image of something in motion, you need to shoot at shutter speeds of 1/250th of a second or higher.

Your phone most likely does not have a Sports Mode setting or the ability to shoot in Shutter Priority mode (although I recently found out one of the new smart phones has a Sports Mode setting). The only way to better your chances with the phone is to shoot in really good sunlight.

Your point-and-shoot camera more than likely has a Sports Mode in the scene settings or Shutter Priority mode. Look up these functions in your manual. If you have a Sports Mode, just turn it on and start shooting; the camera will do rest for you. Using the Shutter Priority mode will require you to set the shutter speed of the camera. I would suggest setting the shutter speed to 1/250, 1/500, or you may have to go as high as 1/800th of a second. That should slow that tail down to a stop.

“What about action shots where the background moves, but the dog is still?”

What you are referring to is called “panning.” This is a great artistic way to create that sense of motion in your images. I love panning shots. They can save a day of shooting action when you have marginal light and stopping action is just not possible. Plus they look really cool.

The secrets to a good panning shot are a slow shutter speed, a subject that is moving in a predictable straight line in front of the camera, and practice.

Controlling shutter speed is easy with a DSLR or a point-and-shoot camera. You can shoot in Manual or shoot in Shutter Priority mode. Either way, you want to set your shutter speed anywhere from 1/20th of a second for a Lab that walks really slow or is swimming, to 1/250th of second if you have a Lab that runs like a greyhound.

The dog needs to be running in a straight line at a constant distance across and in front of the camera from left to right, or right to left. Get down on your knees (eye level with the dog). Imagine you are sitting in a swivel chair, and swivel back and forth. This is the motion of “panning.” Moving from your waist, swing left to right, right to left, in the direction the dog is moving. Put the camera to your eye or look at your display and focus on the dog’s head. You will want to keep the focal point there as the dog moves in front of camera. When the dog starts moving across and in front of you, start taking pictures and move with the dog’s head. Take two or three shots as the dog moves past you. Usually, one of the shots in the middle will be the best. Now it is just a matter of practice. Luckily, Labs love to run and swim, so you will get plenty of practice.

“I hate the way animals have ‘red eye’ or that glazed eye look. What do you do for that, or do you just edit it after the fact?”

The dreaded red eye is the result of taking pictures in low light conditions and the flash on your camera and phone. The technical reason is the light coming from the pop-up flash on your camera or the fixed flash on your phone is only a couple of inches above the lens when it fires. The light goes into the eye, reflects off of the retina, and bounces back directly into the lens. The red color is coming from the light reflecting off of the retina and through the blood vessels in the eye. Yes, you can fix it in your editing software.

Most cameras have some sort of “red eye reduction” feature. This basically fires the flash twice, a pre-flash that fires just prior to taking the picture, and then again when the picture is actually taken. The pre-flash causes the pupil to contract and reduces the red eye. If you are shooting indoors, you could turn on more lights in the room to get the pupils to contract.

The only other options available really apply to DSLR cameras or the more advanced point-and-shoot cameras that have “hot shoes” that allow you to mount a supplemental flash unit, which can be titled up or down and side to side, to the top of the camera. When you use one of these, it raises the flash unit higher so that the light does not come straight back. By titling and moving the supplemental flash, you are able to bounce the light off of the ceiling and walls, which helps reduce the red eye. Also, these units can be moved off-camera and fired remotely, changing the angle of the light.

“What are the best settings for night shots of yellow Labs? We do a lot of campfires, and the light of the fire makes a nice glow on the dog, but we cannot capture the glow.”

The beautiful glow you get from a campfire surrounding your Lab makes for a great image. I have to make an assumption with this one based on the information: Your flash is going off when you take the picture. That alone kills the mood of a fireside shot. The flash on your camera overpowers the glow of the fire. My advice is to shut off the flash on the camera, and raise the ISO setting (in my film days this was called film speed) to a shutter speed where you can hold your camera still without creating a blurry image. I can handhold with a shutter speed that is between 1/60th and 1/125th of a second. The ISO setting around a campfire you would probably set to somewhere between 400 and 1000 to achieve this. Another option is to mount the camera to a tripod.

Then you are going to use the natural light of the fire as your light source. Then that beautiful glow will come back around to surround the dog, giving you the warm cozy feeling you are trying to achieve. Another little tip is to shoot a nice, tight portrait and use the fire to get the “catch light” in the dog’s eyes. 

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