taking pictures of black dogs in the snow? - Page 1

Hey guys,

Can you give me any advice about taking pictures of black GSD's in the snow?  To MY eye, the dogs look gorgeous and I can see all the details, but when I take pics with the camera, the snow reflects the light so much that I can't get a good pic!

Any advice? or is it just my out of date camera??

peggy

I've had to do stuff with the shutter speed on mine to get good pictures in the shade without flash, maybe that will work in the snow too?

Bring the size of the picture down, so we can see it better.

Bring the size of the picture down, so we can see it better.

Hi KnightenHaus,

First, let me say your dog is gorgeous! What is the bloodline?

Taking photos of black dogs is very tricky (I have had blacks for 31 years). The best results are on an overcast day so the sun does not glint off the hair too much. Most digital cameras 'read'  the subject to decide what exposure to use before it takes the photo. The white back ground reflects a lot, os the camera will adjust to the snow, not the dog. If you zoom in so the dog takes up just about the whole frame it may help. but most likely you are not oging to get great detail and contrast in the snow. Sometimes you can improve the photo by changing the contrast or brightness, but I tried it on your photo and it didn't help....Jackie

I just turn off the flash, makes a big difference!

Thanks Jackie!  I think she's pretty too. Her sire is Jaber vom haus Kuhn (he is on the database), dam is not yet on the database, Leisal vom herrenstolz..  I am having such a hard time with these photos.  I've taken some of her before in the summer and they turned out a lot better, but these in the snow just didn't turn out well at all and I was very disappointed. 

I will try to reduce the size of my photos guys....sorry! This Vista operating system is just not what I expected at all and I'm having a hard time trying to get things resized with these programs that are on my new pc. 

Peggy

(1) Do not rely on "averaging" auto-exposure--possibly "spot-meter" your dark subject,

(2) rely on the "backlighting" setting available with most digital cameras,

(3) use a gray or white card and manually re-set your "white balance" setting to compensate for ambient lighting conditions, 

(4) use flash-fill (synchro-sunlight), or

(5) shoot in Camera RAW and make lighting adjustments within Photoshop or Photoshop Elements "white balance" editing.

here's the pictures resized guys..

and another one of my black/red girl, Gypsy.  The one is Gypsy turned out fairly well I thought.

And I didn't have my flash on at all. 

I will try the other things that you guys have suggested. Thanks! Peggy

Notice the slight shadow between your black dog and the camera. This means you dog was "backlit" and that the auto-exposue was averaging..

OTH, your black/red has the shadow beneath and behind her body. I can't tell if this is due to flash or because you were more aware of where shadows were cast.

Ideally, you would like for the dog to be well-exposed and for there to be some "texture" in the highlights of the snow.