Yo Adrianne! Can you help please :)

Can you take a look at this and give me some feedback? Please?

IMG_3793 by inn8one, on Flickr

I was shooting cloudy day, exposure 1/800, ISO 1250, f/5.7, 55mm focal length.

Using AI servo, centered focus. (note this is a cropped picture) I really try to keep the focus on the front of the dog when shooting movement.

My eye isn't very good for this stuff, but did I just miss my point? Is it focused on her back leg? the whole picture looks a bit off to me, in fact the whole sequence did, I ended up deleting the rest of them.

But anyway, in the interest if getting better, what are your opinions? I know I said,"Yo Adrianne", but really anybody can respond.

Did I miss my mark? Is it slightly overexposed? the snow seems a little harsh to me or maybe that's just the angle I'm looking at my screen at , but then nothing is in focus either so I don't know. The background should be slightly out I guess because I was tracking a moving object.

Should I have used a shorter exposure? That could have helped catch the action and toned down the snow.

Any sugguestions? It's not terrible, but it's not very sharp either.

anybody?

Hmm, tough one. We'll need at least 82 more pictures of that awesome dog to tell.

(sorry, I know nothing about photography )

I get on that

it's funny and frustrating, because earlier, it looked overexposed to me, now that I"m at home looking on my desktop, it doesn't. How can I improve my pictures if I can't even decide what my eyes are telling me

I think you've got the back leg focused. It can be a bit hard to tell sometimes. I've looked at pictures and its all slightly off, but not quite sure what the focus point was.

You need to calibrate your monitor.

Most LCDs come too bright, but most CRT screens still around are too dark. Even if you can't adjust them, it helps to know which monitor falls where.

Sorry, but until Lauren bumped this I didn't see it.

It's just blurred I think. I'll know more on my computer at home, my work monitor sucks, but rule of thumb is action shots should always be 1/1000 or faster. I actually think it's a pretty cool photo but a faster shutter speed (you may need to lower the aperture) will help a lot.

I think the neck is in focus (monitor, sorry) so you may be on the right track but the slight blur (which is shown by the drag of the snow) is interfering with the crisp action shot you're shooting for.

Also your snow is over blown so I might attempt to "dodge" (film reference) the snow with a production program by selectively lowering exposure on the snow and see if you can salvage that some.

I'll tackle more when I get home, hope that helps a bit though.

I believe, if I am reading correctly on this screen, the neck and leg are on the same plain. So, that would make sense and when I go back and look again I believe you're correct.

I think the dog looks good, the rest needs work on exposure but that contrast can take a lot of tinkering in camera and production.

Thanks guys for the input. I do think the back leg and neck are ok for focus. What do you suggest for editing? I've only been using my iMac and iPhoto. Pretty limited in what I can do, or maybe my knowledge is just limited. I don't know how to pick certain aspects and edit, just overall contrast, exposure etc of the entire picture.

Did it focus just on those parts because of the lower f/stop? would Shooting that higher have helped get the "entire" dog in focus?

But it was overcast, I think shooting a faster shutter would require me to open the aperture as much as I could. But I suppose I could pump up the ISO a bit to compensate too. Am I ok in this thinking? or am I off?

To me it looks like the focus was missed. I've seen shots of greyhound racing in the national geographic at shutter speed 1/800 so I don't think the blur is entirely from the shutter speed being too slow.

Were you using all area autofocus or chose your own focusing point? Letting the camera choose focusing point is usually where I see this problem. But then again dogs are always challenging! You may get a couple of out of focus shots here and there, we all do!

Also in terms of editing, I would probably have bumped up saturation a bit and spot adjusted the dog a bit brighter. Shooting dark dogs in the snow is hard!

Overall I think it looks pretty good.

I used my own focus point.

I don't think I can spot adjust with iphoto, if you can, I haven't learned how which is entirely possible.

double post

RtH, I don't have any payed for editor but I can't stand my iphoto editor. I use this free photo editor site for all editing I do and you can do spot adjustments with it.

http://ipiccy.com/