cleo

[wjm]

probably should have removed her harness but she's not very sociable

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k48/nortchul/IMG_7317no2.jpg

[Lonnie]

Hi WJM. Did you try and save this exposure by putting in some exposure compensation during processing? It looks like there is a lot of noise/artifacting in the body of the dog. My guess is the dog wasn't properly exposed in camera.

[wjm]

had problems getting the shutter speed over 1\40 iso cranked up to 1000
and exposure was a bit off with the snow
here's one untouched

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k48/nortchul/IMG_7318.jpg

[Lonnie]

Yeh, it looks like you are losing detail in the blacks, which is easy to do. Shooting a black subject, in my experience, requires a really accurate exposure. You would have had a lot more success if you had shot RAW in this case - it gives you more room for exposure compensation after the fact.

Lens/camera/exif for this shot?

[wjm]

lonnie my mistake in quoting settings
original was shot raw
40d with tammy 70-300 at 130mm
f4.5
1/1000 sec
iso 160

[joedlh]

Tough shot. All things being equal, you were going to lose something: either detail in the blacks or the whites will be blown out. From the lack of shadows, it was overcast or in the shade. That's good for reducing mid-day contrast. However, the original was underexposed, as your camera's meter tried to turn the snow to 18% gray. So you had little detail to start with in the dog's coat. Overcompensating the exposure would have made the snow whiter and brought out more in the coat.