Dog show photographers?

[Tess320]

Is there anyone here who is a dog show photographer?

I'm the OP for a breed club National next year and as I've never done a full show before, I have a lot of questions :oops:

Nat

[Gary_Evans]

I dont personally, but I know someone who does.

What do you want to know?

[ssim]

I love animals but have never been done anything like this.

I did look at your show dog gallery and you've got some really nice work there. Would more of the same be appropriate?

[Tess320]

More just tips and tricks on how they go about it during the day. How many memory cards would be required, little things like that.

[mjordan]

I have done a lot of dog shows, although mostly I've concentrated on working events... agility, herding, obediance, carting, ring sport, ground dog, etc. I also do comformation but I find they are boring, but people do want shots of their dog in the ring.

I do not do winning dog shots though... those are the guys that run from ring to ring taking pictures of the winning dogs with ribbons and judges. Those guys have to do way to much work. I do just about all the other photography though, including the shots for the clubs newsletters and publications that show the over all events and activites.

How many CF cards you carry are going to depend on the file size your camera puts out. When I was shooting with my 10D, I carried about 6 gigs of CF cards plus 6 spare batteries. I then added a 40 gig Image Tank to dump my CF cards into for times when I was shooting a lot of images in a day. I've done as many as 1400 or more images at some of the herding and agility events I've shot at. When I moved up to a 1DMKII and it's 8mp file size, I've had to add a coupel of more CF cards, including a 4 gig one. The 1 gig cards only give me about 73 shots (I shoot everything in Raw) and the 4 gig gives me 300 Raw shots. I'll probably pick up another 4 gig card since they have really come down in price now. I still take my 40 gig Image Tank, but I find with the larger file size, the battery charge doesn't last as long as it did with the 6mp file sizes. So I have to sometimes go out to the car and plug it into the 12 volt power port. It's going on 3 or 4 years old to, so I'm probably going to upgrade to one of the newer data storage devices.

If it's indoors, you are going to find that there won't be enough light. The last show I did a month ago was indoors and even with lots of light coming in, I had my 1DMKII at 1600 ISO (love the low noise of the camera at high ISO) shooting with a 24-70 2.8L lens. I never use flash, even when it's allowed, so that I'm never accused of distrating the dogs at the critical moment. When people lose in the ring, they try to find every excuse they can other than their dog was just not good enough. :D

Wear good shoes, you won't get a chance to sit down much. I use a waist pack rather than a should bag or back pack. That way all my equipment is right there with me where I can reach it. Also, don't just stay focused on the ring. Look around at the grooming tables and people walking their dogs around. There are lots of good pictures from those areas as well.

Mike

[Tess320]

Thanks for that Mike, definitely appreciated.

It's only the national for one breed club, and so only one ring will be going at a time and so the winner shots won't be too hard if I get it set up right.

I think it *may* be inside, so I was planning on purchasing my future lens quicker by that time anyway (the sigma 70-200 2.8), so I was hoping 2.8 would be enough light. They haven't had a "real" photographer for the last few nationals and the last one left after a half a day, so it's not like I have to compete with past amazing shots, but I want to do really well.

On the plus side, I only live 10 mins from the venue and can practice my setup on my own dog of the same breed!

I have a 30D and so I get about 170 raw on 1 gig card and I have a 40 gig hd to back it up on.

Thanks!

[mjordan]

I've found that indoors at most places here in the US, the lighting is marginal at 2.8. You can get good pictures, but you have to watch your timing of when you shoot. If the person is going around the ring or away and back to the judge and are moving pretty fast, you are going to have to pan with the dog. I do take pictures during the movement, but I also concentrate on getting shots where they are standing still or moveing slower. It's usually 50/50 on if I can get images that are good enough for 8x10 prints, but most times, what is a little on the fuzzy side for a 8x10 print is acceptable at 5x7 and better at web screen size. It just depends on what they are going to do with the prints.

Here is a link to the last show I shot... a 2 day Bouvier des Flandres Specialty. These are shots are out of the camera, processed from raw to tiff and then jpegs for the web. No noise correction, leveling, or other corrections. I put them up so the editor of the club could go through and pick out what she wanted for their next newsletter. Those are the ones I edited and croped and tweaked. I shot these all at 1600 ISO with a 24-70 2.8L lens.

http://www.sitnprettyphoto.com/2006specialty/index.html

Good luck Tess. It's a lot more fun taking the pictures than being out in the ring showing the dog. :D

Mike