Photoshop Creative

I've never had occasion to take action shots. On Saturday Shamus was outside enjoying the nice weather, and racing all around the yard. I took many shots of him running but only had a few come out. I'd appreciate any pointers that anyone might have for me. Thanks in advance. Here are the three that came out.

Anita

They are all great but the first one is fantastic. that is the way to do it, down low

I can't overemphasize what Suzi said ... she hit it on the head. Shamus is a little guy; get down on the ground as close to his level as you can. As Suzi says, see how much better #1 is compared to the two where you are looking down at him.

You can try panning, but if you can get him coming "at you", or even only at an angle, as you did in the first one, panning is probably not necessary. There is enough light to freeze his motion just with the shutter speed.

If you can crank the shutter speed up high enough, the required f-stop will probably open up enough to throw the background into soft focus. That looks like what happened with these three shots. For what you are attempting, I would not want the lens setting to be greater than f-5.6 and maybe 4 or below.

If your camera has the setting, I would try a "burst setting" to let the shutter fire again and again and again -- as long as you hold the button down. This will not work well with flash but will be OK in a daylight setting.

You did a nice job on these three. (IMHO)

Rusty

Oh my these are fantastic!! I have a pic like this of my Yorkie running in the yard and she looks like she could have done a V8 commercial (you know the ones where they are tilted off to the side). Shamus is precious ... and now I'm wanting another puppy lol

Yes, get down low with the little guy and get the view from his level. Also, try setting the focusing to continuous and see if that helps any. I imagine he can move pretty quick when he gets going and if your camera focus is able to track him when set to continuous, you may get more shots that are in focus.

Add to the follow focus with burst mode(if your digicam has it). This would take a quick succession of shots very quickly while following the action.
Chas

What a bundle of energy! I love your shots, especially the first one. If you have someone else to call Shamus, maybe entice him with a toy or treat or just play, then you'll have a better idea of where he is going to run, and you can be ready for it.

Panning is fun to try. And you don't always have to freeze the action - I'd like to see some motion blur and a white streak of puppy! Does your camera have rear-synch flash? I'm not sure if it is always called that... maybe the night scene flash option too. They will freeze the subject in sharp focus but keep the shutter open longer, which gives some interesting motion blur.

I remember trying to get action shots of my rabbit when she was a new bunny. She was fast! My camera and I were not. I got very few good shots.

Courtney

Thanks for all the great advice. I'm going to try some more shots, hopefully I can get more keepers. He's so fast and he loves to start going one way and veering off in another direction. I never would have thought such a little guy could go so fast. I guess it'll be good experience for me.

Anita

I'll add trying shutter speeds around 1/500 for coming at you and 1/1000 or greater for going horizontal( at least that works for panning birds in flight).

Thanks Linda, I'll give that a try.

Anita