Billy Bob does not tip over

February 23rd is Billy's birthday and I wanted to take some birthday photos of him. So I led Bean and him out to our backyard and tried my luck. To get his attention I have a video of barking and rooing greyhounds during a turn-out at a racing kennel, a greyhound roo-fest inside a friend's home, and a morning practice with a squeaking artificial lure at a racetrack. No doubt he wondered what I was doing as I walking back-and-forth on the patio while getting ready to play back the video, so he followed me. Hoping he would keep a bit of distance from since I was using my 70-200mm zoom (which has a 5ft/1.5m minimum focusing distance) I braced myself against a vine-covered wall and played the video a few times. I used my SB-800 flash to provide a bit of fill.

This was his reaction upon hearing the rooing greyhounds.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 with the 70-200mm VR and SB-800; shutter-priority with a shutter speed of 1/320 sec at f/3.2; ISO 400; matrix-metered; shot in RAW and imported into Lightroom.)

Minty (2003? - 2013) and Hoover (2006? - 2013)

Both taken before their time from smoke inhalation from an overnight fire at home last week.

Minty at Dewey Beach last year:

Hoover at Gettysburg last year:

(Minty: Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 18-35mm zoom at 18mm; aperture-priority with aperture set at f/4; camera set shutter speed to 1/1250 second; matrix-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.

Hoover: Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom at 70mm; program mode; shutter speed 1/250 second at f/8; -0.3 exposure compensation; auto white balance; shot in RAW and converted in Lightroom.)

Five weeks before Dewey

While thumbing through pictures I took at Dewey last year I spend some time looking at those I took at sunrise. I'll share this particular one of beach grass that I took on Monday morning, a few hours before I left:

That smudge on the left is a bird that flew by.

I'll mention that the camera was set on Program mode, where the camera sets the shutter speed and aperture for you. Sometimes you'll read about never using Program mode -- that it's better to use any mode (Shutter, Aperture, or Manual) other than Program. To be honest, I'm amused when some people are so strident about this. All I care about is that I get the picture that I'm seeing in my mind. I've used cameras long enough to know the capabilities of each mode, and why you'd want to use any of them. But when you have light changing so quickly as you do during a sunrise or sunset, I don't want to waste time thinking about settings -- I want to concentrate on what I see in my viewfinder.

Yes, you should learn what each mode can do for you, because Program is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. But you're not a loser if you use Program.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom; program mode; camera set shutter speed of 1/80 second at f/4.5 at ISO 400; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Faces from the Fastfriends picnic

There were some stunning greyhound faces at the Fastfriends Greyhound Adoption annual picnic this past weekend. As I had done at the GreySave picnic two weeks prior, I used center-weighted metering to bring out the eye color. I just want to know what will give me the look I want, and when to use it. And it has to be fun, too.

Anyway, enough of the tech-talk -- let me share some pictures I took during the picnic:

All but the fourth and fifth pictures in this series were taken with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens set at f/2.8 (the other lens used was the Nikon 70-200mm VR). The 50mm lens is crazy-good.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm and 70-200mm VR zoom, and the SB-800 flash; auto white balance; flash compensation set to -0.7 or -1.0; normal JPG.)

Galgos at Gettysburg

I don't know whether this is true or not, but I got the impression that there were a lot more Galgos at Gettysburg than in years past. There has been a concerted effort by people both here and in Europe to get Galgos out of Spain due to the horrific way that many of them are disposed of when they are no longer wanted.

I won't dwell on that subject as you can find information about that on the internet. Rather I choose to show some Galgos brought to the US and Canada that I met while in Gettysburg. Somewhat smaller than Greyhounds, they are stunning to look at. This is Iker from Canada, who arrived here just a few weeks ago:

He is shy and at first wouldn't let me get too close for a picture. Eventually, he did relent and I got a couple of shots using my 50mm lens.

Zeus was the second Galgo I met. He lives in Ohio:

Then, I met Lehto for the first time. He is nearly a year old and rail-thin. His antics are legendary, as are his looks:

I used an aperture of f/2.8 on all of these, which does not allow much room for focusing errors. But the wide aperture blurs backgrounds nicely.

(Shot with the Nikon D300, 50mm prime, 70-200mm VR zoom, and SB-800 flash; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/2.8; shutter speed varies; ISO 200 and 400; slow-sync flash mode; auto and cloudy white balance; normal JPG.)

More stinkeye? Don't mind if she does...

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom lens set at 200mm; program mode; camera chose shutter speed of 1/30 second, aperture set to f/5.6 at ISO 1800; spot-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

In your ear

Yesterday I was browsing through some pictures I took back in October 2005 of Nikki and Sadie. We had had Nikki for eight years by then, and Sadie for a year. I was with them in the backyard patio, looking for an excuse to use my 70-200mm f/2.8 VR zoom (a wonderfully-made, but heavy, lens that I don't get to use often enough). They were acting pretty cute with each other so I waited to get a shot of them both. Nikki was sniffing Sadie's head as she sometimes did when I took this.

I had zoomed out to 70mm but because of the D200's crop factor of 1.5, my field of view was equivalent to a 105mm lens on a 35mm film or full-frame digital SLR. The lighting is a little unusual because they were standing in a patch of light falling on concrete, which in turn reflected the light upwards. So both girls are illuminated from underneath to a certain point, at which the rest of them is bluish due to them standing in shade.

This image has appeared in a Celebrating Greyhounds calendar, as well as on the Ohio State University's Greyhound Health and Wellness Program's website and their quarterly newsletters.

Six years since I took this picture. Six years...it doesn't seem possible.

(Shot with the Nikon D200 and the 70-200mm VR zoom set at 70mm; aperture-priority, with aperture set at f/5.6; camera chose shutter speed of 1/45 second at ISO 200; auto white balance; fine JPG.)

Sadie gives me the "eye"

This is a little example of setting the lens aperture yourself, and why you care.

I walked into our bedroom at lunchtime one day and saw Sadie and Katie lying on our bed. That was not unusual in of itself because they do this often. What was unusual was that they were right next to each other instead of having a bit of space separating them. And Sadie appeared to be peeking over Katie's back in order to keep an eye on me. So I got the camera and hoped she would stay in-place while I decided how to best photograph it.

I had the Nikon 105mm Micro-Nikkor f/2.8 VR macro lens on at the time because I love its sharpness and was trying to find excuses to use it. At the time it, and the Nikon 70-200mm VR f/2.8 zoom lens, was the fastest lens we owned (until I added the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 recently). Anyway, I decided I wanted Sadie's face in sharp focus but have Katie (lying in front of Sadie) and the blankets and pillows (behind Sadie) be blurred. In this way, your attention would be drawn to Sadie's right eye.

To do this, I set the D300 in aperture-priority (press the "Mode" button down and spin the rear command dial until "A" appears in the top LCD display), then selected the widest aperture on this (f/2.8) by spinning the front command dial until "f2.8" appeared on the LCD display. Now that I've set the aperture, the camera picked the appropriate shutter speed given the ISO I had set (800). (On second thought, I guess I could've set the exposure mode to Program Auto, metered the scene, then spun the rear command dial until the LCD display read "f2.8", but I didn't. For Canon users, I think aperture-priority for them is "Av" mode.)

Now the "why-you-care" part: setting the lens aperture to its maximum opening (like f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8) lets you put your subject in focus and blurs everything else in front or behind it, while setting the aperture to a smaller opening (like f/16, f/22, or f/32) lets you put pretty much everything in focus.

I'm sure I also set the focus mode to Dynamic-Area AF so I could set a focus point on her eye.

(Shot with the D300 using the 105mm Micro-Nikkor f/2.8 lens; aperture-priority; 1/30 sec @ f/2.8; ISO 800; normal JPG.)