Agility class photos!

[crysania4]

I brought my camera to class today in the hopes of getting a handful of pictures. Usually we get a fair amount of down time but not this time of course! She had us paired up and being distraction for someone else (more on that later). I ended up getting only a few and I was pretty disappointed with it though the quality was good. But then I was talking to Heather after class and said something about how I'd stick around to take some of the next class, but I didn't want to be too much of a distraction. Tina's response as she walked by? "The dogs need distraction. Take photos if you want to!" So I stayed and took A TON. I ended up with about 250, of which 126 turned out decent enough to upload. Some turned out really good.

I am SO HAPPY with this camera. You can see how photos taken around the same time of day in the same barn with my A230 came out here. Granted I wasn't using the best lens but still, the graininess sucked.

I shot most of the ones today at ISO-1600, which let me get pretty fast shutter speeds (sometimes even 1/2000 or higher if the dog was light). Many of the photos came out totally sharp, with just a bit of grain. Many of the photos I deleted weren't blurry. They were just bad photos (dogs jumping out of the camera, etc.).

I shot everything using my 135mm f/2.8 prime lens and then cropped if needed.

And for those who haven't seen them on FB...a special treat! I got photos of Dahlia!

This was Penny, my partner for class.



Indy, the black lab, who I like a lot. Indy is about the same age as Dahlia though she has tons more energy and drive.















Q (I think it's just Q though I could be wrong) doing a nice 2on/2off.



I forget the name of this dog.






This Aussie is GORGEOUS.



And apparently thought the tunnel was something to walk ON. I wish this was on focus but it was hard to quickly focus when there was a jump in the way.









Indy again.



Q again. God I LOVE Belgian Tervs.









Handsome Yellow Lab whose name I don't remember. You might remember the story about the Lab who busted his owner's lip in the tugging mini-clinic? This is the dog.









This is my friend Heather's dog, Guinness.

































LOL EARS.



Flying treat!

























































And now for Dahlia! Tina was nice enough to run her for me so I could get a few photos. It was NOT a brilliant Dahlia run by any means as she was tired and confused a bit. But she did well enough for me to get some decent photos.

















I am ridiculously happy with my camera!

Comments

[anobjectinspace.livejournal.com]

Fabulous photos! And i love the sense of motion you capture. They are not just still, flat shots.

And OH HOLY CRAP IS THAT A RED MERLE AUSSIE.

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

YES IT IS!! Isn't he gorgeous? SUCH a handsome dog and such a nice one too.

[recreatexme.livejournal.com]

Great photos! Oh man there's a red merle Aussie at work that everyone hates (common theme with herding breeds...) but I adore the crap out of. Want one! And that Terv looks really similar to the Terv boy I love.

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Thanks! This boy is a really nice dog. I quite like him a lot. And the Terv is AWESOME. Some days I'm torn between getting a Terv and BC but considering how much easier it is to get a BC from a rescue (as in there aren't many Tervs in rescue) I'll probably still end up with my BC someday.

[recreatexme.livejournal.com]

I'd only get a Terv if I was going to do protection sports (which I might in the distant future) since the working lines are so freaking insane, and I'm not a huge fan of the show lines, but I really do like them. Between BCs and Aussies I tend to prefer Aussie personalities but I like training BCs more... I just want ALL THE DOGS!

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

LOL I want ALL THE DOGS too. Well, all the herding sort of dogs. BCs seem to be my main interest though. I like their personalities, their looks, and ok so I like their tails. Plus every freaking Aussie I see in agility barks its damned head off and that would drive me NUTS. I've seen a few vocal BCs in agility but mostly they're super focused and quiet when out there.

[wirenth.livejournal.com]

These are so fantastic and I am so flippin' jealous of your camera!

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

I'm so excited about how the camera is working out. It's even better than I could have imagined. I'm still not sure I could get pics of warp speed Steve though. LOL

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Those are stupendous! When are you coming to visit me and take pictures of Kaiya? *g*

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

You probably don't even live that far away from us! Maybe sometime we could take a trip over!

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

It takes me around 7-7.5 hours to get to Rochester (well, Webster), so you're...what? Maybe an hour closer? I need to plan another trip to visit P one of these days (though we're getting together in the Adirondacks in about three weeks), so maybe I can stop by you on the way.

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Yep about another hour closer!

[christalynn.livejournal.com]

So jealous of your lens!

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

It's an AWESOME lens. It's definitely my prize lens and amazingly it only cost about $400, which was not a bad price at all for such quality. I got it used from eBay.

[christalynn.livejournal.com]

The lens I want is 200mm f/2.8L II USM... but it's over 600 on sale so I need to find a refurbished on or a used one :( I was taking pictures today in the agricultural center at the agility trials I volunteered at and all the pictures I got sucked :( so upsetting... When I got home and started to look through them I seriously wanted to cry. I had the camera in manual to have my aperture as open as possible but the lens I was using only let me do 5. I should have played around with it more.. but I couldn't use a high shutter speed because the pictures would be much too dark. This is what I got :/

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

I don' see what's wrong with that shot at all! It looks awesome and way better than mine!

A 200mm f/2.8 would be awesome. I'm sure that's way beyond my price range at this point.

[christalynn.livejournal.com]

I'm way jealous of your shots :P My shutter speed was set to 1/250 and my iso was at 1600 (I think, maybe higher?) I missed many shots because they were just too blury. A guy had me use his 7k+ camera to get pictures of his dog running :P I had major camera/lens envy at that point :P haha. His lens had an f2

[shimmerngspirit.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? That's a great picture. I love the dog's expression. You captured crazy agility zomg yay!

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Yeah for real! I think it's an awesome shot!

I wish I were taking photos at a real agility event. The dogs today are beginner dogs at handling so they weren't doing anything really difficult or drivey.

[christalynn.livejournal.com]

Haha, thanks. That was a lucky shot! I was there during excellence class so all the dogs were really good and really fast. Maybe I should have taken pictures of the novice or open classes :P slower dogs might have given me better pictures :D hehehehe

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

You can come take pictures of Dahlia anytime! LOL

[christalynn.livejournal.com]

Haha, but you have a black dog! SOOOOO much harder to get a good shot! So you're becoming a better photographer because of her :P

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Dahlia is EASY. She's slow and likes to pose. And because her hair is so textured and all over the place, the light bounces off her in a myriad of ways and make for such a better picture. You'll notice that my photos of Dahlia are way better than my photos of the smooth-coated black lab!

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Oh man I'm not even sure I'd feel comfortable holding someone's fancy camera much less use it! Wow.

I think indoor action shots definitely need an f/2.8 or better. At f/2.8 I was able to get up to around 1/1000 to 1/3200 depending on the color of the dog. It was fairly light in there though, but I still wanted it as open as possible to get the fasted possible shutter speeds.

I do know the feeling of "OMG THEY ALL SUCK!" The last time I took my camera to the agility barn for photos I came home and looked at them and was so sad because they were awful. The shutter speed was ok, the dogs were frozen in action, but they were so grainy they were entirely unusable.

[christalynn.livejournal.com]

Haha, yeah, I was intimidated by it... I didn't want to hurt it! He had already preset it so I just had to point and shoot... but man, he really did put a lot of trust in me.

I am just going to have to start saving for that better lens. This is a typical 'grainy' shot from today... most of them had this kind of blur or noise (some much worse)



I know the camera body I'm using is pretty good... I just need better lenses.

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

I don't find the graininess any worse than what's in my photos. It's a little blurry but that can also give a sense of motion. But I know what you mean about wanting them to be super sharp and in focus!

I had the better lenses, but needed the better camera body! LOL

[christalynn.livejournal.com]

One of these days ;) The competitions were fun to watch nonetheless :)

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

They're SO much fun! Sometimes I forget to watch because I'm taking too many photos.

[shimmerngspirit.livejournal.com]

I love tervs too. I told this to my neighbor who has belgian sheepdogs and she was like no! Belgian sheepdogs are much prettier than tervs and as lovely as her big black beasts are I still love the tervs.

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

I do love the Belgian sheepdogs too though! They're gorgeous!

[shimmerngspirit.livejournal.com]

I love their personalities. So awesome. I can see it in the way they play with Payton and interact with me and their eyes sparkle with mischief. Just great dogs.

[lemmingpie.livejournal.com]

These. are. amazing!!!! Very, very nice!

[rikkitsune.livejournal.com]

*flail*

I WANT TO DO AGILITY SO MUCH.

I still have 3 obedience levels to graduate first.

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Why do you have to go through a bunch of obedience stuff to do agility? That seems weird to me!

[rikkitsune.livejournal.com]

Because you need a certain level of training before you can work with your dog effectively. My club won't take you into their agility program until you're Level 4 or higher. We're Level 2 currently.

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Oh geez. No offense to the club but I HATE that. It can be good to have a solid sit and stay but I can't imagine what else in obedience class would really be that helpful to agility. Our classes started at the foundation level which helped teach sit/stays and recalls in terms of agility functions. Obedience and agility are really HUGELY different things and I'm always irked at places that require high levels of obedience BEFORE agility.

Tina starts people with very young puppies, puppies who don't even know their name, in the foundation stuff. And it all works great that way.

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

I love the black lab. His expression is priceless!

[crysania4.livejournal.com]

Indy is a great dog and she looks RIDICULOUS when jumping. I had no idea she looks so silly!