Taking Photos of a Curly

1. Try to shoot from close to the dog’s eye level. Kneeling or sitting usually gives a better, more accurate, perspective.
   
2. Since we know from experience that a Curly’s coat tends to go to silhouette easily, look for favorable light angles or use a fill flash.
   
3. If the colors seem to be off, or have a artificial tint, your White Balance (WB) may be off. Check the camera’s menu, or its manual for settings.
   
4. It’s usually better to follow a moving dog with your camera by panning and shooting at a good spot, rather than waiting for the dog to enter that spot and taking the picture. Plan ahead where the best spot will be.
   
5. Keep your lens (or lenses and prism) clean. It’s the nature of camera lenses to attract dirt (static). Use a soft lens brush; lens solution and lens paper; or a lens cloth only.
6. Focus, focus, and focus. Without getting into discussions about depth of field, aperture, or shutter speeds, if there is one thing that always matters: Get as sharp a focus as possible. If you're using an auto-focus camera, usually there will be an indicator, a dot, arrow, or crosshair target showing where the camera will focus. Help the camera by placing the indicator on the area of your subject where a sharp focus matters most.

1. Use the best lens you can afford regardless of its length. A fast 70-200mm f/2.8 lens will generally take more, high quality, photos than a slower (and usually less inexpensive) 70-300 mm f/4.5 lens.
   
2. Choose RAW format, or RAW and High JPEG setting; you’ll need a application that supports RAW conversion.
   
3. Use a tripod or a mono pod when shooting with any telescopic lens, even with anti-shake features.
   
4. Get the best focus possible. If using AF (auto focus) lock the focus on the dog’s coat and the camera should adjust to pickup highlights and shadow detail.
   
5. Try for good, even, light. If most of the light is behind the dog, use a fill flash. Some backlighting helps give depth to an image. That’s good. Too much backlighting leaves the dog in shadow, On the otherhand, if the a flash is to close, or too strong it may blow out the photo - use a diffuser or bounce flash if needed.
   
6. Save images at the highest resolution your camera supports. Memory chips are fairly cheap, and computer storage is cheap as well. You may never get a chance to repeat the shot at a higher resolution
   
7. If you’re serious about taking great Curly photos you’ll want one of these programs: Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Apple Aperture and other app's support RAW format editing.

1. Adapt any of the items from the SLR list that work with your camera. (Especially if it supports RAW, save your images in RAW format if you can. Youwill need a program which allows you to make adjustments and corrections to RAW images)
   
2. Use Fine or other High resolution settings. Medium, and Small file size produce lower quality or mediocre images.
   
3. Get closer rather than relying on zoom. You’ll have better focus, color detail and less distortion. Optical Zoom is much better than Digital Zoom (called Interpolation which just magnifies the size of groups without improving the resolution). Depending on the lens, image quality is usually optimal at the middle of the optical zoom range.
   
4. Rest your camera on a stable object or use a tripod when possible. More of your photos will be sharper, even with anti-shake turned on.

When film was the media used to create photos, the photographer could choose different film speeds and color temperatures (warm -reds and yellows; cool - richer blues and greens). Except for changes made by film choice film processing into prints gave the customer a good, average photo. The film's negative contained a great deal of information than most people required. That negative given to a darkroom, or color lab tech could be a much better finished photograph. It was accepted that up to half, or more, of the artistry of great photography was in the darkroom.

Most images taken by a digital camera are processed by software the camera uses to provide its user with an acceptable photo. The user can make some general adjustments before the photo is taken but when the image is saved, up to half or more of the digital image information is dumped. This occurs both by what the camera has been programmed to determine what it needs for that optimal shot, only RGB color is retained, and during the process of compressing the image to JPEG format - when the compression scheme discards redundant bits. TIFF format retains a bit more of the image but a significant amount of image information is lost.

With RAW Format that artistry is available to anyone. Since most of the14 to 16 bit of information you camera sees is available and can used to produce better photos. Applications that process RAW are available for free, at a relatively low cost, or are included in image processing applications such as Photoshop, Photoshop elements, Lightroom, Apple Aperture. More later.

The photo left is the unedited image saved as a jpeg file. The dog's coat detail appears to be lost in the shadow.

The photo middle left has been adjusted in the RAW plug-in for Photoshop. The only adjustment needed to show coat detail in the shadow is "Fill Light"

The photo, middle right is the jpeg image editing in Photoshop by adjusting "Mid Tones slider" in the Levels menu to approximate the amount of detail in the dog's shadow. That adjustment takes out detail in the water and produces a lower quality resolution for when the photo is printed. Typically this is the adjustment used to reveal mid tone detail in most JPEG images.

The photo on the left had a couple more steps taken with the RAW plugin, Temperature was "cooled" to around 5000 K and Saturation was increased slightly.

For an objective and more comprehensive discussion about RAW and why you might want to start using it, go to: northlightimages

More will be added as time allows. Please check back.
Comments, suggestions, corrections, or requests:

There are times when a flash is necessary, poor lighting, indoors, and nighttime events for example. A good flash stobe can be adjusted in both intensity and to the direction where most of the light falls.

Many cameras work with smart strobes which measure distance and ambient light, adjusting the light for each shot. They will usually allow the photographer to adjust the light manually, or work with camera software to create a balanced flash.

Too much flash on a close subject can wipe out (or blow out) image detail. All white faces without detail are an example. If your flash is not fixed in place, and you expect this might happen, consider turning the flash to an angle away from the subject, or bouncing the flash off a ceiling or white wall. Flash strobes often come with a diffusing lens which will soften the light on your subject.

A fill flash adds light to areas that might otherwise be lost or unclear in shadow. Places where fill flash adds detail range from shots in full, overhead sunlight; shots where the subject is in the shade and the background is much lighter, or indoors where the lighting is behind or overhead. The most common examples if effective use of a fill flash are close shots of people on a sunny beach, or on the snow on a sunny day.

Because a Curly often appears as a shadow in just about any light, plan ahead. Before you take a shot in less than idea light (too much or too little), consider whether using a flash might balance the light to give more detail to your image. When uncertain, try taking some shots with, and some without using a flash.

A strobe is a great tool in improving your prospects of getting great shots in varied light conditions. One other benefit, a strobe is generally color correct and will often be all you need to correct blue, red, other color casts.

A note:

This page is intended to be helpful, and is not intended to be authortative. It seemed to me a lot of us have been following the same learning curve in trying to get decent photos of our Curlies. Now that technology has given us more tools, this piece is aimed at helping some to speed along that curve, avoiding or solving many of the problems most have encountered. Perhaps it will expose you to other tools which are of help.

I hadn't intended to appear to be favoring one style or make of camera over another. The average point and shoot camera nowadays takes better photos than most people got with an expensive SLR film camera just ten year ago. So,while most serious photographers use an SLR, many, or most, also carry a small point and shoot camera.

Hopefully you'll feel less intimidated by your camera and set about taking more pictures of you dog(s).

Regards,

Hamilton
10/20/11