Favourite lens

What is everyone's favourite lens for dog photography?

I did a shoot with a rather quick greyhoundAnd my canon 24-70 f2.8 struggled to keep up.
Swapped out for a 70-200 f4 and it coped better but I'd really love a lens that gets a nice tack sharp image or am I doing something wrong do you reckon?

Are you referring to the black female in your gallery?

Our black greyhound was a challenge. Not a lot of contrast for the camera to work with when he was running. He'd rather lounge around in the grass or go for a languid stroll than run so it wasn't much of a problem.

If it is her coat causing grief for the camera, try keeping the focus point on a lighter patch of fur if she has one. Haven't tried it but you could get light coloured non-toxic chalk and draw a couple of small spots on her side to focus on. Clone them out in post.

70-200 is my preference although no issues with other lenses chasing our brindle hound.

If the image isn't sharp it could also be pan rate & not keeping up with the dog. You may have to tweak the AF system to deal with erratic movement. I assume you're shooting servo + continuous. Taking several dozen frames to ensure you nail focus and capture a great expression with a usable background is a good strategy imo.

If you can get her to run in a relatively straight line parallel to the camera you could try prefocusing on an object in the path and see how that goes. f/8 would be a good starting point and open it up if you're getting consistently good shots.

1. Phoenix

Photo from aezoss's gallery.
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