Welcome back to BAUFOTO dog-photo storyes
This time I will also try to concentrate on the technicals aspect about the how the photos were shot.
Amy is a 8 months old French Bulldog (well she's actually a big girl now since I took the photos more than a year ago).
She was the second dog that I ever photographed in the studio and she taught me a very important lesson - if you are going to shoot both outdoor and studio - first shoot outdoor.
That way the dog will get tired from playing outside and be more relaxed and collaborative in the studio :) ....you never stop learning.
So here's our photo-adventure, hope you enjoy it.
Lets Start with the studio shots:
First a few closeup portraits. I really love how close-up dog portraits express a huge amount of personality.
The lighting was simplye - a 50x50cm softbox with a speedlight in it on a boom, directly overheading Amy (classic beauty/paramount/butterfly lighting). I used a cheap Yongnuo 560 flash (recycles much faster than my nikon SB800) with the yongnuo triggers.
Nikon D7100, Sigma 50-150 f/2.8 shot at probably something like f/9 - would have had the exact same result with a cheap camera and a kit lens - once you have all that flash power you can shoot at low ISO and closed aperture - so it really doesn't matter - thats why I absolutely LOVE SPEEDLIGHTS - crazy value for a super-small investment.
After this i wanted to try something more dramatic, so i gave her human friend (I don't remember his name unfortunately) the softbox and asked him to follow her around the studio (he was a voice-activated light stand :) ). Needless to say: because of the fact that when shooting off-camera flash you are shooting without TTL, because of the INVERSE SQUARE LAW (go google it), you have a relatively narrow interval of distances between your light source and your subject to avoid over/under-exposure.
So there were quite a few badly exposed shots - but hey it's digital and it doesn't cost me anything, right?
I really love the dramatic look of theese shots, she almost looks like some kind of superhero :)
Back to some "normaly-lit", full-body shots:
To the park!
At the park it was all much more spontaneous, her running aroung and me running around her - cant get too fat with this job, thats for sure :)
I was using my Sigma 50-150 for the whole time (like I do 90% of the time when shooting outdoors), since the park we were in wasnt that beautiful, I was trying to keep my aperture as low as possible - everything was shot between f/2.8 and f/3.5
You know they say that dogs quite often look similar to their owners? I think this is a good example....but other people told me it really isn't, what do you guys think?
I'm a photographer living in Padua, Italy specialized in photographing dogs, my dog photography project is called BAUFOTO (Italian dogs go "bau" instead of "woof" :) )
I have photographed over a 100 dogs and in the next weeks I would like to introduce you to them by posting every week a short story about one of them accompanied with a few photos, so if you think it could be interesting for you feel free to follow me :)
Very beatiful dog. And the pictues are amazing!
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Really great post, love how you explained the lighting setup, I heard a lot of good things about those Yongnuos!
Fantastic dog portraits, excellent, resteemed and upvoted!
thanks man, like your work too - followed. Yes I bought 3 560s like 4 years ago (around 55€ each) , they fell many times and took quite a beating - never had a single problem with them - apart from 2 of them losing the wide angle difusor on them from falling from light-stands but thats my own falt.
Thank you! I have to look into them myself! Cheers!
So cute...very good Job my Friend... I take it to my Wall...And you have a new Follower :)
well, many many danke schon to you dear lady :) you have some very nice posts in your blog, followed! have a great day!
So kind, thanks a lot...have a great Day too :)
Great series of shots! Good looking pup.
thank you
Good lesson on the order of the shoot - wear 'em out first!
Excellent shots and she's a star. The one with her tongue sticking out is priceless!
hehe agreed, thanks a lot
Beautiful photos. I have tried many times to get good pictures of birds, insects an even some dogs. I m only a month in with my camera an learning new things every day. I will definitely try your technique to ge better shots. Thank you for sharing.
thank you. yep, you can also find tons of tutorials on youtube, but in the end -> practice, practice, prectice, practice, experiment and have a lot of fun - thats what its all about
Thank you, and you have me as a follower forever. 😊
:)
Great photo and doog so cute！！
thank you :) stay tuned for more
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Wow thats really cute! Keep it up
thanks a lot, more coming very soon
GOD HES SO CUTE! Good stuff man
thank you, stay tuned for more puppies :)
your bw photography is really good, followed
Thanks dude. And I'll be on the look out for more pups!
Good point about taking pics outside first to get the dog tired. I have to that w my English bulldog.
hehe yep, thanks for stoping by. looking forward to more of your articles
Sweet dogs and very cool angel added with beautiful colors @govdo