Flying Doodle Photos

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

I'm talking about the pics where the doodles have all four off the ground!! I absolutely LOVE those pictures and yet have so far failed miserably at getting one of Tara!! I spent 1/2 hour today TRYING to get one and she was flying like crazy! But my miserable, cheap camera wasn't up to the job!! All I got was AIR-with no doodle in it!!

 

So for now I will have to live vicariously through my doodle friends with awesome cameras! Please share your favorite photo of your doodle flying!!!

 

This is the best I could do! Three off the ground...

 

 

 

[Ann Kendig]

 

 

Duke

Sheba at 8-9 weeks old

Sheba now

[Pam and Ginger Snap]

great pics!!!

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Ann, after looking at that 8-9 week old picture of Sheba I think that she must of FLOWN out of the womb!!! LOL! These are WONDERFUL shots!!!

[Shelby and Kev]

Perfect capture!  and so inspiring...

[Lorraine Bromley]

Wow yours are so good. What kind of camara do you have?

[F, Calla & Luca]

Simply WOW!

[shelly]

WOW!  The one of Sheeba with the Frisbee looks like one I have of Tori... still looking for it.

[Donna K & Quincy]

Sheba was definitely born to fly.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Wow...these are all amazing!!

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

These are amazing shots of Sheba and Duke!

[Richard Crowe]

The problem with many cameras is shutter lag.  Shutter lag is the time between pressing the shutter release button and the camera acquiring the image.  Usually the point and shoot style cameras have longer shutter lags and the DSLR style cameras have shorter lags.  I transitioned from a digital point and shoot camera to a Canon DSLR because I was tired of getting only the tails of my dogs in the image.  I would shoot and wait, and wait, and wait some more and the dogs would have been long gone.

 

You can reduce shutter lag on most cameras by pre-focusing.  Depressing the shutter button halfway until the camera focuses in the spot in which you anticipate the dog will be.  This is pretty impossible when trying to shoot airborne dogs. The diferences between shutter lag times is sometimes quite significant in different cameras - even between different point and shoot varieties and different DSLR types.  Here is a site that lists the differences in shutter lag between camera types and brands. 

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-lag-comparisons.cfm

It is probably best to find a camera with which you are familiar in order compare shutter lags.  However, you can see great differences by comparing the Casio Exilim EX-Z33 with a shutter lag of 1.62 seconds and a Fuji Finepix F70EXR with a shutter lag of under a quarter of a second.

 

Professional DSLR cameras have shutter lags of around .06 seconds and even the prosumer and entry level DSLR cameras beat the average point and shoot hands down when it comes to shutter lag. 

 

However, all DSLR cameras are not created equal when it comes to capturing moving subjects and there are differences in lenses also.  The New Canon 7D (and to a slightly lesser extent - the T3i and 60D cameras) are excellent at capturing fast moving subject due to their newly designed focusing systems.  However, that is literally splitting hairs.  You can capture shots like this with just about any DSLR camera.  I shot this one with an older Canon 30D.

 There are other factors in capturing airborne doodles and one of the most important is shutter speed.  You need to shoot at a high enough shutter speed to stop action.  I want a minimum of 1/500 second but, prefer even faster.  This will sometimes mean that you have to boost the ISO or open your aperture to just abut its widest point.  The increased ISO can result in noise but I would rather have a bit of noise than to have a blurry subject.  When you open your aperture to its widest point you decrease the depth of field (the area between the nearest and farthest point of focus).  This can be a bit difficult to work with when shooting a moving subject because you don't have much leeway in your focus.  HOWEVER, when shooting with a narrow depth of field, you are isolating your subject away from the background which is blurry. NOTE:  you need to take control of your camera when shooting moving subjects.  Using your camera on AUTO will not normally work very well.  You need to be able to control shutter speed, ISO and f/stop and that means using a mode which will allow that control. 

[Ann Kendig]

Thank you for the great info Richard.  It is always very helpful.  Great doodle photo and the black frame makes the photo pop!