Dog portrait at dusk- looking for honesty!

Photo of my GSD taken just before dark with the 70-200 2.8 IS. I know her ears are chopped off, but her eyes are so mesmerizing that it saves the photo... or so I think...? Thoughts? Am I just biased?

I like it, the eyes really make it. Like you say pity about the ears. With that in mind have you considered cropping it so it is more of a portrait format.

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I think his right eye (our left) is really nice. the left one is a bit dark and harder to see. Might just be my monitor but the overall picture seems pretty dark. Maybe lighten it up a tiny bit? I would have used a little smaller of an F\stop to get a little more detail.

Thanks for the comments! She was in an awkward angle where a very orange street lamp was lighting up one side of her face. I agree that it is a little dark. I don't have photoshop yet, just the DPP software that came with the camera, but this was shot in RAW, so perhaps I could still lighten it?

A little fill flash would help this picture immensely. I like the portrait crop. When you get PS you can clone out the dirt on her tongue.

- WB seems wrong to me (too cool).
- Yellow dot/reflection in dog's right eye (our left) is distracting.
- Crop is strange (he's missing part of his ears).

pretty flat

My wife loves all photos of our dogs.

So, you'll feel a perfectly valid connection to your own dog's eyes, right?

If you turn image editing on (permit POTN members to edit your photos and re-post) then people here can help with the technical aspects.

My opinion of the photo is that with a few technical touches it will improve, and if you love the animal and enjoy the photo, let it be enough.

Well...since you asked for honesty...

Yea... I have to think you're being bias here. I really feel that first and foremost, this image was poorly composed. As you say the ears are chopped off but additionally, the dog's face is smack dab in the center of the frame. As adrian5127 suggested, have you considered a portrait instead of a landscape? You have the right idea by trying to get in close to the face and being eye level with the dog, but this just wasn't done right.

Also, as other's have mentioned, the image is way too dark. Normally I'd just suggest adjusting the levels, but there also appears to be a good deal of noise here as well. Some of the noise could be cleaned up with something like Noise Ninja, but to me it looks like there's quite a bit there. Next time maybe try shooting with better light. I would also add that the focus just doesn't appear as good as it should either. Since you shot this at f/2.8 one would assume your DOF was just a little too shallow. With a "long" face such as that of a shepherd, you gotta watch that shallow DOF.


Now -if- this were a "once in a life time" photo op, you could try and save this image, but honestly with all the problems here and considering she's your dog...I'd just re-shoot. Personally I think she's a lovely dog and I'd probably be following her around with the camera all the time! LOL!!! As I tend to shoot A LOT of dogs, if I may, let me give you a few more suggestions...

First off, whenever I'm shooting critters in general I almost always shoot in AV mode (Aperture Priority). The problem with shooting critters is that like with "people portraits", it's all about the expressions but unlike people, you can't usually tell a dog to say "cheeze". Those great expressions with dogs tend to be very quick and fleeting so personally I try to not mess with the camera any more than I have to so I can just wait for the pose/expression.

Secondly, although you can't tell a dog to say cheeze, there are some other ways to get a good expression out of a dog...squeaker toys, funny noises, etc.. Be shameless! If possible have someone help you and have the camera pointed and ready to shoot then have the assistant squeeze the squeaker toy and be ready to "click"! I find with most dogs this will usually get the ears up and get them to look at you kind of funny. Do be warned however, dogs are NOT just "dumb animals" (well...most of them aren't at least). If you do this too often they will catch on and like human children, they'll get bored with it.

Third...when you're framing, don't try to get the framing "perfect". Despite what some folks may say, there is nothing wrong with cropping an image and when you're working with critters, it tends to make life a little easier later. I almost always try to allow a little room when I'm framing an image to allow for cropping later in pp.

To give you an example, here's a shot of a shepherd I did at a local dog park not too long ago...

Hope you don't mind... I took some suggestions of others, cloned out the yellow speck in his eye, cloned out the dirt on his tongue, brightened it a bit, made his eyes pop, and added a little contrast.

ashjamesgav wrote in post #6679589
Hope you don't mind... I took some suggestions of others, cloned out the yellow speck in his eye, cloned out the dirt on his tongue, brightened it a bit, made his eyes pop, and added a little contrast.

You also might want to try backing down the blues a bit...at the very least try using the Saturation tool in Photoshop (or something similar) and just desaturate the blues. I might also do a little selective noise reduction on just the background as bringing up the levels (brightness) has made that stand out a bit more.

Peace,
Jim