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Exposing White Dogs


Snap
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This morning I became the proud owner of a Nikon D50 :laugh:

I would like to learn to shoot in manual, so I can harness everything this great camera has to offer. Here's the first two photos I've taken, of course based around the spunky Ollie boy

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I'm happy with them both, how couldnt I be? Best shots I've ever taken. ;) But I do realise that Ollie's white fur is over exposed so I'm hoping some white dog/photography experts might have some solutions?

Thanks :cheer:

Edited by Snap
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This morning I became the proud owner of a Nikon D50 :laugh:

I would like to learn to shoot in manual, so I can harness everything this great camera has to offer. Here's the first two photos I've taken, of course based around the spunky Ollie boy

wooo hoooo! Congratulations!! You'll have loads of fun and you're off to a great start.

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Yes, the dog is burnt out over the top of the head and in the tail.

You seem to have your dog sitting in bright sunlight. Try bringing your dog out of the harsh direct light. Go right up close to him and take a meter reading from the white area of his fur, put your camera into manual mode, put in the settings that you just took in your meter reading than stand back and shoot.

You might find the red areas will be a little under exposed but easier to bring out detail in under-exposed areas than create detail in over exposed areas.

(I'm so much better at explaining this face to face. I suck at technical stuff online. :laugh: )

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With white animals you generally have to shoot with the apertured closed one stop more than normal coloured animals. I take most horse pics in the sun on f8 but if its a grey I will if given the chance change the aperture to f9 or f9.5.

A multicoloured dog - as long as all the dog is in the sun you can use the normal setting or close the aperture by one and bring up the dark areas using the shadow highlights tool in photoshop (im not sure what the similar tool is in photoshop elements though).

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With white animals you generally have to shoot with the apertured closed one stop more than normal coloured animals. I take most horse pics in the sun on f8 but if its a grey I will if given the chance change the aperture to f9 or f9.5.

A multicoloured dog - as long as all the dog is in the sun you can use the normal setting or close the aperture by one and bring up the dark areas using the shadow highlights tool in photoshop (im not sure what the similar tool is in photoshop elements though).

Thanks, I'll give it a go!

:rofl: Congratulations on the delivery of your new Nikon camera :thumbsup:

Thanks!

Oh i forgot to say welcome to the Nikon club too :) The first one is lovely and sharp :) what lenses do you have with your camera?

Ahh, a limited crowd is it? I've got to say I was very canon inclined until I held the beautiful D50. It's just so easy to use! I've got the 18-55mm and the 55-200mm but not sure how I'm going to replace them in the future, but they're great for now.

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Snap where did you find the D50? New or used? They are soooo good. Just getting a bit old now, for a DSLR. Ours is still our favourite, it has survived a two story fall, broken caseing, drowning, all that. It now finally has a tiny cluser of dead pixels in the sensor which can still be worked around. I wouldn't hesitate to get another one as a back-up if the price was right, but even well used they are holding their price more than others in that range. The extra features are good on our newer Nikons but the the D50 is special.

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  • 2 weeks later...
This morning I became the proud owner of a Nikon D50 :)

Congrats on the D50, they're a great little camera.

...

... some solutions?

Thanks :rofl:

In that particular instance, I'd add fill flash and decrease the exposure.

Generally, I shoot this kind of stuff in aperture priority with my flash (SB600) in iTTL and use an appropriate level of flash compensation to lift the shadows.

I always found the D50 to be a little prone to hot spotting. I know a lot of people had their exposure comp permanently set to -0.3 or -0.7 in an attempt to avoid blow outs. I tried that too but didn't really like the results. These days I shoot with a Fuji S5 set to 400% dynamic range and the whole white/overexposed thing is not usually an issue and the difference is **very** noticeable in comparison to the Nikon sensors.

Hope that's of some help.

Michael

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Can't figure out if this one is underexposed or just right?

...

Must say I'm pretty happy with it :rofl:

Looks great, I love the light on his ear.

...and besides...

*everyone* knows there's no such thing as a bad photo of a Cavalier.... :)

Edited by BlenheimBoy
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