crysania4 | Agility class photos!

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!

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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 :/

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.

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

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

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.

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

You can come take pictures of Dahlia anytime! LOL

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

Agility class photos!

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