# What camera do you use to photograph your poodles?



## Birdie (Jun 28, 2009)

I use a Canon Rebel XS with the kit 18-55 lens... It does the job. I can't wait to get some new lenses & maybe a makeshift portrait studio area so I can use it to it's full potential.  
DSLRs become SO much more fun when you can really understand how they work and how to use them! I love fiddling with all the functions. I'm a total amateur, but the more I learn the more interesting photography becomes.


----------



## Princess Dollie (Jan 15, 2011)

My boss is an avid photographer. So, I gave him a budget and upwardly delegated the task to go find me a camera. He chose the Canon Rebel T3i with the 18-55 lens. 

I'm getting better pictures but I still need to learn a lot more about underexposure, overexposure, and take it off the auto mode - especially with a black dog.

I know you've seen these before but the head pic is overexposed. My boss likes to play around with Photoshop so he's going to work with the image over this weekend. Such a good boss. :act-up:


----------



## mandyand casey (Jan 12, 2011)

I got a Nikon d3000 with the kit lens 18-55 vr last christmas and bought a 55 -200 lens this year for it. I just still point and shoot though lol My sister loves editing pics i just use them as they come out of camera


----------



## caboodles (Jan 7, 2011)

Canon Rebels XS' are pretty amazing! I have one as well, and even though it's pretty clunky and large.. it ALWAYS captures amazing pictures. The shutter speed is SO quick, so you always capture those special moments, especially if they're action shots! Also... great focus and slightly blurs the background.. they always look professional.

I've always preferred the Canon cameras to other brands.. I've found that even the lower prices ones take better pictures than Sony

OHHH yeaaah.. and a cool thing you can do on a Canon is this colour pigment thing where you can focus in on one colour and then the rest will be black and white. SOOO, say you have a brown poodle, you focus on the colour and "select" it as the main colour, .. It will only capture the colour of your poodle, and the rest will be in black and white. I'm bad at explaining it!!.. My apologies, but it IS a pretty cool feature!


----------



## spoofly (Jan 20, 2010)

I shoot with a Canon 300d with a kit 18-55mm lens. I plan on upgrading, but I got the camera for a great price. Great camera for beginners. It does everything I need and a little bit more. I plan on getting more lens' soon!


----------



## Keithsomething (Oct 31, 2009)

Nikon D40 is my go to camera 

but I've been going back to film more and more lately...especially since a super awesome friend  gave me two older Nikons that are AMAZING ^_^


----------



## cliffdweller (Jan 31, 2011)

I'm currently using my cell phone and an old Kodak CX7310. I have a Canon 30D, but It's still too dangerous to have it out when I'm around Rain (she jumps up in the air at unexpected moments & likes to steal things like cameras, cell phones & electric toothbrushes ~~~ have to cut my losses). Since I fell in the water the other day, just after taking the Kodak out of my pocket, I've decided to spring for a waterproof camera that I can take out on the boat, etc. and not have to worry so much. I bought a Pentax Optio WG-1(should be here in a week or so ~~~).

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~*


----------



## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

I use a Nikon D40. I have only had it a few months and I too don't know how to operate it without being on Auto. I haven't had much time to read the manual or figure out how to use it. I am hoping to find a good class to take this summer because I really want to take advantage of what a DSLR has to offer me. 

This website: Stop Shooting Auto! has been quite helpful to me.


----------



## spoofly (Jan 20, 2010)

ChocolateMillie said:


> ...
> 
> This website: Stop Shooting Auto! has been quite helpful to me.


Thanks for the link!


----------



## AgilityIG (Feb 8, 2009)

I shoot a Nikon D300 with a 70-200/2.8 and MB-D10 battery pack about 95% of the time - it's an arm burner and weighs in at about three pounds all together :biggrin:. If I am in the house or doing close up non-action work, I have a little 50mm/1.8 that I love on my D300.


----------



## Ms Stella (Aug 16, 2010)

*Very Nice..*



Birdie said:


> I use a Canon Rebel XS with the kit 18-55 lens... It does the job. I can't wait to get some new lenses & maybe a makeshift portrait studio area so I can use it to it's full potential.
> DSLRs become SO much more fun when you can really understand how they work and how to use them! I love fiddling with all the functions. I'm a total amateur, but the more I learn the more interesting photography becomes.


I like how you blurred the edge on the cat and how clear the one of the dog is.


----------



## spoospirit (Mar 10, 2009)

_The blur around the cat was most likely caused by a shallow depth of field. The lens was probably stopped down to its lowest point; like an f/2.8 or f/4. This causes the point of focus to be very sharp and allows the rest of the photo to go out of focus. Using the camera this way can be very creative and cause lovely bokehs in the background as in the photo below.










I use the Canon 5D Mark II, but I did not get the kit lens. I bought the 28-77mm wide angle/macro lens and the lower end 70-300 long lens. I use the Canon Speedlite 589EX II with a Gary Fong diffuser over it to soften the flash. 

Although I know how to use it, I often use the auto setting when out shooting the dogs just for fun. It can be difficult to keep changing the settings depending on the lighting and the darkness or lightness of the dogs in the frame. This is a heavy camera too.

I shot this on manual settings without flash










Competition print that I shot the first day I bought the camera and used manual settings. This one won a judges award. It is Grace jumping through a thawing pond.










Photographed indoors without flash on manual setting. Had to take several before I got some without camera shake. Didn't have a tripod with me.










Photographed last summer on manual choosing a very shallow depth of field to allow the one flower spike to stand out.










Shot last week on auto. Notice the camera chose a low f-stop due to low lighting because of the heavy overcast. This caused Chantel to go out of focus. I liked the look so I kept it. I could have set it to manual, choosing a high ISO allowing me to shoot in a low light setting using a higher f-stop allowing me to also have Chantel in focus too.










I shot this one with the long lens. What I love about this camera is the amount of sharp detail that it picks up. I shoot in RAW only. When I am done with the photos in Lightroom, I export them out to a folder as jpegs.










Taken with the long lens indoors with the flash and diffuser attachment.











Used auto setting for this since we were shooting all five of our dogs playing in the wild flowers. The light angle kept changing depending on which way they were running and I was going back and forth between light dogs and dark dogs.










_


----------



## Ms Stella (Aug 16, 2010)

Spoospirit, Love, love, love your photo work. I cant wait to learn how to use some of the manual settings. My daughter has a camera like yours...I think. Its one of the Mark ones...she is a photographer. I love the detail that yours shows. I am hoping my D60 will be good enough for now. I can borrow my daughters too when I learn how..lol Would you agree that the lenses really make the shot? This is my first DSLR. I plan to get other lenses later. Its a pretty expensive hobby though, so it takes time to aquire all the stuff. BTW when will your cards be available? I keep waiting to hear that they are ready to order!


----------



## Ms Stella (Aug 16, 2010)

Interesting how many poodle people have good cameras..lol Canon and Nikon's all good. I guess that poodle people are very visual people...makes total sense to me!


----------



## spoospirit (Mar 10, 2009)

Ms Stella said:


> Spoospirit, Love, love, love your photo work. I cant wait to learn how to use some of the manual settings. My daughter has a camera like yours...I think. Its one of the Mark ones...she is a photographer. I love the detail that yours shows. I am hoping my D60 will be good enough for now. I can borrow my daughters too when I learn how..lol Would you agree that the lenses really make the shot? This is my first DSLR. I plan to get other lenses later. Its a pretty expensive hobby though, so it takes time to aquire all the stuff. BTW when will your cards be available? I keep waiting to hear that they are ready to order!



_Yes, the quality of the lenses you use will make a difference in the quality of your images. But, a low end camera with a high end lens will still take less than high quality photos as a rule, although it will still take better photos than a low end camera with a kit lens. Dianne uses the lower end Canon and I have found that I have to sharpen every one of her photos when I import them to Lightroom. So they have less detail in them than mine do. 

The cards are posted on a page linked to our web site and this is the link: 

Most of them are on but Dianne hasn't gotten the pricing up yet. You can PM me about them if you like. I now have all the stock I need to make them. And, if you have any trouble loading any of the pages, let me know. I think we put them on bigger than we should have and it is slowing down the load time._


----------



## spoospirit (Mar 10, 2009)

Princess Dollie said:


> My boss is an avid photographer. So, I gave him a budget and upwardly delegated the task to go find me a camera. He chose the Canon Rebel T3i with the 18-55 lens.
> 
> I'm getting better pictures but I still need to learn a lot more about underexposure, overexposure, and take it off the auto mode - especially with a black dog.
> 
> I know you've seen these before but the head pic is overexposed. My boss likes to play around with Photoshop so he's going to work with the image over this weekend. Such a good boss. :act-up:


_Nice photos of your black dog. I can see detail in the dog in each of them.

The head shot does not seem to me to be much overexposed. What I am seeing is a black dog for which the camera exposed quite well for, but in doing so, blew out the background. Such are the pains of photographing black dogs. As you said, you will find that using the + or - for underexposure and overexposure will help with that._


----------



## faerie (Mar 27, 2010)

i have a nikon d40 dlsr.


----------



## Ms Stella (Aug 16, 2010)

*T3i is the one I started looking at with canon..*



Princess Dollie said:


> My boss is an avid photographer. So, I gave him a budget and upwardly delegated the task to go find me a camera. He chose the Canon Rebel T3i with the 18-55 lens.
> 
> I'm getting better pictures but I still need to learn a lot more about underexposure, overexposure, and take it off the auto mode - especially with a black dog.
> 
> I know you've seen these before but the head pic is overexposed. My boss likes to play around with Photoshop so he's going to work with the image over this weekend. Such a good boss. :act-up:


I really liked the auto-focus + on the T3i...I think that is what its called, it has an additional auto setting that will utalize more of the manual settings on auto...If I understood correctly. 

The Canon D60 was only 100.00 more so I bumped up to it. It has the adjustable viewfinder too, but has a faster shutter speed than the T3i and a higher view % on the LCD screen. My guess is that one can take as good a photo with any of the camera's if you know what you are doing! Now I just need to learn what I am doing 
Tammie


----------



## Princess Dollie (Jan 15, 2011)

spoospirit said:


> _Nice photos of your black dog. I can see detail in the dog in each of them.
> 
> The head shot does not seem to me to be much overexposed. What I am seeing is a black dog for which the camera exposed quite well for, but in doing so, blew out the background. Such are the pains of photographing black dogs. As you said, you will find that using the + or - for underexposure and overexposure will help with that._


Thank-you for your kind comments. But, when I see the beautiful head shots of Billy that you have taken, I just go :adore:.

I looked at your cards on your website and it does seem that not all of the graphics are loading. You can double click it though and the enlarged image comes up in the second window.


----------

