Dog Portrait

[Jaedon]

I'm having a hard time getting a decent picture of my dog and here's why. He's Black. The camera AF won't pick him up very well and the metering gets all screwed up by that as well.

Here's an attempt I made today:


In order to get the image you see before you I made 3 layers - Foreground, background and dog. The foreground got 2 steps of gaussian blur, background got 5 steps of gausian blur I then applied a curve to the dog layer and an opposing curve to the background and foreground layers to bring the blacks in the dog out form the rest of the image.

The post work I did left a halo in certain areas around him so I am trying to avoind that in my next attempt.

Is there a way to get an image of a black object (in this case the dog) without having to do so much post work?

This can be reshot at any time (after all he is my dog lol) so any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I haven't got better than this image in the year I have owned my camera.

[Lava Lamp]

Does the Evolt has a spot meter feature? I'd experiment with fill flash, too. Your effort isn't bad, but the shadow on his face is a little heavy.

[Jaedon]

I was using fill flash as well. (you can see the flash in his eyes) The Evolt will allow me to set the meter to center point which is, I believe, the closest thing it has to spot metering.

To be truley honest.. that's not shadow.. his face is even more black than his nose (if that is at all possible). His fur blends from Glossy to dull as he's double coated (Newfoundlander / Great Pyrenese cross) which adds to the problems.

[MJS]

Do you have a hand held meter? try and do an incident reading from the dog, towards the camera. You could also spot meter off an 18% gray card.

[Jaedon]

no I don't have a hand held meter... I have never actually had one. I keep wanting to get one but the money and the opportunity have never been in teh right combination for me to do so.

Now spot metering off a grey card I could do. I would simply be left to manual focus as I can either lock the exposure or the focus but one or the other has to be adjusted after the locking of the other.

[MJS]

Check out the manual, maybe you can spot meter in manual, along with a manual focus.

[trog100]

if possible use manual focus and turn the contrast setting right down on the camera.. the picture will have less white burn out and the blacks will be lighter and more detailed.. the combination of blacks and whites are too much for the camera to handle.. turning the contrast down will help it..

u play with (add) the contrast afterwards..

trog

[Greg McCary]

It's not just the evolt. I have always had trouble getting detail out of black animals. I just think you have to expose them differently. Your camera is probably taking a balance of the entire area. Most often you can just overexpose just a step and it will balance the picture better.
Greg

[trog100]

that one isnt a black animal.. its a black and white animal.. made worse by the white snow background.. turn the exposure up and u lose the whites.. turn it down and u lose the blacks..

the only thing that helps is turning the cameras contrast right down.. that in essence make the whites darker and the blacks lighter.. the picture looks wishy washy but the detail in both blacks and whites is kept and the contrast can be pulled back in post processing..

its all about dynamic range.. the camera or any camera just dosnt have a wide enough for all situtations range.. probably a cameras greatest weakness..

trog

[J-Dogg Productions]

i found the best way is using the sun i used a flash it dosnt work as well heres a picture i just uploaded in another thread using just the sun try photoshop for touch ups

[Loupey]

A good example of when to go all manual (AF & exposure). That fence in the background would be what I would meter off of (looks like a perfect 18% to me). Use whatever metering mode you have and use that fence as a starting point.

As for the details in the black, your going to need very directional lighting (side or back) from either an off-camera strobe or low angled sun. Of course the non-lit side will most likely go completely black.

The other option would be to use very diffuse lighting and go tight just on face/mane.

[Sebastian]

Meter off the snow and go up 1.5 stops.

http://www.normankoren.com/zonesystem.html

When it comes to focus, focus sensors look for contrast. If you can, point it at the area where the black fur meets the white fur. Stop down a bit to increase DOF if need be.

[Jaedon]

Thanks for all the advice guys. Some of the things I have tried and others I have yet to try ... but the one that stood out to me the most was Trog pointingout that I had made it even harder on myself by choosing to shoot him in the snow lol.

for this shot I was metering off the patch on his chest as close as I could get to where the black and whites meet. He was being such a good dog and holding his stay for me but it was cold and he was jittery. I was shooting wide open at first but I adjusted down a stop (should've gone another 1/2 step but I can play with that more later) My first attempts on this shoot were either blown out or wayyy too shadowed.

So I yet again have to thank all you folks for helping me get my skills up to speed. I love this community for the amount of advice you can get. Sometimes contradictory at first (or so it may seem) but as I learn I am becoming more and more comfortable with my camera every day and the learning curve is getting less steep every day.