Help! Suggestions dog show photos

[kkopreski]

I have numerous questions and don't know who to ask... so I am trying you guys.

I would like to start taking photos at dog shows.

I attend dog agility trials and think this would be a good way to help pay the cost of traveling and a possible way to get a business started.

However I have had little to do with photography since college and I am not "in the know" as to what equipment I would need to start a portable photography business.

I would "like" to have a laptop to display the photos taken to allow customers to choose the photos they like... what do you guys suggest? What camera? Storage?

Any advice would be helpful. KK

[misskitty5077]

What is your setup? Do you own anything now?

Do you have permission from the show organizers?

Check out the location beforehand. Make note of the lighting, conditions and so on. Also the ring set ups and where you will be allowed to shoot from. Go when there are people there with dogs working and make sure you get good shots THEN.

You will need lots of cards and batteries. Have at least two more of each than you think you would possibly need.

I shot agility and obedience a few months ago. The way I worked was to use Exposure Manager and I passed out cards with the site on it. That way they handled printing, shipping, cards, everything. All I did was shoot, process and upload.

Also, pay close attention to the handlers and dogs while they wait. Some of my best shots were taken before they were called. :)

[tracknut]

"dog shows" typically means conformation events. "agility trials" typically means agility events. I'm not sure which you're referring to above.

That said, conformation events typically (always, from my experience) have a single exclusive contract with a photographer. So you want to contact the show organizer and get on their list for that. You can't just show up and start shooting and handing out biz cards or set up your laptop.

Agility trials sometimes have an exclusive, sometimes not. So again, you need to contact the organizers on this one. Agility is quite often indoors under pretty bad lighting. I'm usually shooting at ISO 3200, between f2.0 and f2.8, and wish I could go to 6400 obviously.

For setting up a portable business for either of these, you'll want multiple PC's as typically the model is to allow customers to come up and view the images of their dog, while somebody on your team is sorting photos into folders by dog, or by class, etc. Takes a bit of overhead (and a helper) to do this right.

What camera probably depends on whether you meant "dog show" or "agility trial" above. I would be using a full frame camera for the conformation event, and a sports camera for the agility event.

For agility I will shoot upwards of 6000-8000 frames in a day.

Dave

[PhotosGuy]

Dog Shows (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=285917)