Leaping Delilah

Here's a tough one for me.

I love this shot, but I am not at all happy with the composition. The pooch captured in midair, Delilah, was flying off the dock to go after the ball, and would do it every time without fail.

My friend and I thought Delilah would be a fun subject for trying some high-speed photography. It was a bright day, and her doggedness (pun intended) on going after the ball every time with abandon allowed us to try lots of shots.

This is about the best one I got, as I caught her at the top of her arc into the water. the camera was set to 1/5000 with a 28-80 lens. I think I was using 400 speed film. Here are my questions:

1) How could I have set myself up better before shooting to have a better composition?
2) How could I have gotten a sharper image (I think I had the camera set up to do tracking autofocus)? Should I have used a flash?
3) Should I have just set my camera for continuous shutter release and hoped for the best?

I love taking pictures like this, but I haven't been able to take one that I have been happy with. Any tips or tricks would be appreciated.

...but to answer your queries:

1) I would have (if possible) positioned myself more or less across from where she was jumping in. Basically, the image would depict the dog leaping mid-air towards the camera / ball. Zooming in if possible to show the wet fur / dog's eyes.

2) Sharpness will have a lot to do with your camera's autofocusing sensors in a situation like this. If you end up having to shoot from the side like this, you could try panning. It might blur the background and the water somewhat, but I think it could be a neat effect.

3) If you're trying to "freeze" everything in mid-flight, then yes. Most likely this would produce the best results.

I second the idea of getting a little more in front of her when she jumped, so you would get a better view of her determined expression. :) Also, try to have more room in the shot in front of her (visually gives her a place to "jump into" in the picture.) You could try using a tripod or using something to rest against to keep the camera steady (this will help keep the background sharp) Great shot though, and what a cool doggie!

I thnk you both are right--it would have been better had I:

1) angled myself a bit to catch her front end; and
2) used a tripod.

We'll try again this year!

might give you enough stability and leverage to have an upward and steady shot...great idea and what a faithful pooch to "slave" for her master's art ;)

You've got some good answers already, but here's my $.02. If you like this viewing angle I would try and have the dog and the ball both in the frame, zoomed in tight. With this comp might want to try using a larger fstop to blurr the background. Trying to freeze fast moving subjects from this position is hard to do and requires very fast shutter speeds.

I would probably try and pan the dog and the ball from this angle myself. Another view might be from an angle behind the dog or in front of the ball(might need a boat!) using a fast shutter speed. This would be easier to freeze the motion and get a sharper image. You could then play with the depth of field; putting the ball in focus and the dog out-of-focus and vis-versa. This is a fun one to play with compositionally. Hope this helped. Have fun with it.

i agree with the other posters who recommend getting in front of your dog. getting him dead head-on could be quite cool. i've seen photos when dogs are catching frisbees, etc and they look so intense and focused right as they are catching the frisbee! i just recently took some action photos of a dog so i'm very interested in reading the replies to this post... i'm already getting hooked on dogs as subjects. :)

Thanks for all of the posts so far. There are a lot of good tips here. Keep posting!