Clicking Mad

gorgeous huga ... you photographed 8 shepherds? tlc: at obedience Saxon is sedate ... he's caught on pretty quick with me taking pics, had him at the park this week off lead so he was just weaving here and there following his nose, coming back in, going out in front, while he was out in front I knelt down to take a picture, he turned around and stopped, sat and waited for the release :D my beautiful boy

wow I hadn't realised you hadn't had him out for a run! Looks like he had fun :D I'm liking the new grounds too :)

hahaha those are amazing hahaha re: blending in with the Frenchies - exactly :laugh:

he's brilliant!! love his name too :D what a fun combination of Frenchie and Dane - up there on my fav lists!

beautiful! really enjoy the blues and love your dedication :) I've done a few early starts for photography purposes, but work is my primary reason for being on the road before 5:30am

thanks :D Lotus' tail is not docked, but she was born with a half-tail :) and while I'm here a few more from the same beach trip with the 85mm :) I'm sure I've bored you all to death with beach trip pics now ... oh but I have some Lotus in the river shots taken with the 85mm ... um ... this will have to be the last lot ... I'm getting bored lol cheers for looking

is editing over 190 photos too much for one trip to the beach? :laugh: these are from almost a month ago, took me about a week, when I really concentrated to edit the last 174, between everything else, and work so obviously just a sampling effort with the 85mm lens :D may end up showing some more, see how much I'm sick of them ... late last month I also exclusively took it to the river with Lotus to trial, and last week exclusively to the beach of an evening with Saxon, may find some results here by next month ... wonder why I keep running out of space on my computer

I was wondering about that from an unknowing-eye ... it's Chester ... obviously just what he looks like all out of focus :D ping - nice rainbow of colours being thrown there, well seen opportunity :)

a recent fav :) all artsy-fartsy, and sacrificed with mosquito bites the size of 50c coins for my efforts :D

wow huga they're nice! um Sid ... what the ...? :laugh: love his pose in the last :)

all so nice! doggies, birdies and flowers, very pretty guys :D kirislin - happy birthday to the boys, looking good! possomcorner - love that yellow backdrop, nice :) ~~~ Saxon on his 9mths (a little bit of pink blending) (Chess under a bridge)

tlc: liking your flower shot :) lollipop: great series with the cockatoo! ~~ it seems I'm always looking for nice backlit spots, now that this thread has started :D a series from yesterday

:cool: huga, very nice, glad you like it ... Sid's such a great little model 'n all :D MM: looking forward to seeing some of yours :D ~~ couple from me in the backyard yesterday @f/1.4 @f/1.4 @f/3.2 and actually the front yard :)

just a few quick ones from the beach this year taken with the 70-200mm f/4.0 some older birdie shots in the backyard it's good for the zoo too, can't seem to find any atm, may need to make another zoo trip soon anyway :) and back to the 85mm, I've found out today it's a nice length for backyard play :D (will try to get some of those up soon)

gotta go to work now, get to it tomorrow :)

:cool: congrats very nice image :D

thanks, it's her 8th b'day today :D canon non-IS :)

excitement plus!! I love the time between hitting the buy button "what have I done ... oh well, it's too late ... oh goody, a new lens" to the time it arrives on the doorstep, all that potential :laugh: I'm sure you'll do well with it :) tlc: my most reliable lens is the 70-200mm f/4 mainly saved for beach trips oh and speaking of the 85mm and the beach, I did take it to the beach last week, hmm where are those images? found one :) Canon 50D 85mm @f/2.5 (seeing trying off wide-open lol) ss 1/8000 ISO200 and a couple more just uploaded to flickr for here 50D 85mm @f/2.0 ss 1/8000 ISO200 50D 85mm f/2.5 ss 1/8000 ISO200 :D

yeh, always shoot in manual mode the 2nd and 3rd above were an overcast day, and the last was in shade, I do tend to get as high a shutter speed as I can regardless of whether I'm taking action or portrait just for those unexpected doggy movements, unless I'm deliberatly aiming for a different kind of shot, although it may be more to do with shooting wide-open 90% of the time which obviously means I can get those higher shutter speeds? I don't know I do it all without thinking these days, the ISO always gets bumped up too if I'm seeing too much shutter movement (around ss 1/800) and I give up if I'm looking for sharp action and the ISO has to go to 1600 or above and the ss is below 1/500, it's just not worth it for me, happened to me a bit over winter when I seemed to be out too late to catch enough light actually was just thinking, the only time I really shoot off wide-open is if there is too much light so the aperture choice comes first, the ISO is adjusted, then whatever is left-over lol ... I have been choosing around f/4.0 for action lately just to get more in focus ... and only when there's enough light and not too many distracting surrounding elements that I don't want ... but I always seem to default to wide-open, I love it and I happily sacrifice multiple shots to missed focus for that 1 that is in focus :D pers: ooh I like that last Beardie one, great colour, v. nice :D

very nice everyone :D a few from me canon 400D 24-70mm @ 24mm f/2.8 ss 1/5000 ISO200 canon 400D 50mm @f/1.4 ss 1/2000 ISO400 and Lotus looking thoroughly unimpressed canon 400D 50mm @f/1.4 ss 1/2500 ISO400 lastly Saxon being crazy canon 400D 105mm @f/4.0 ss 1/1000 ISO800

@ f/1.4 ss 1/800 ISO800 (this was from the later evening shoot, the sun had gone down, actually I remember I'd gotten there at a good time, but got interrupted when the sun was shining nicely by a rogue black labx youngster, when he'd gone the light was gone ... oh well) ... you may notice particularly with that last shot that f/1.4 is probably too much, Lotus' eye is pretty much the only thing in focus as it turned out the focus hasn't been working for me, that shot I was talking about that I had more in the series (Chester shaking/returning the frisbee) ... well the rest have missed focus, that must have been the lucky one ... and at the beach this morning, focussing at distance was poor for me, it's possible I wasn't on my game since the other lenses produced a lot more than usual missed focuses too, but the shots that required closer focus points worked ok? ... anyway @ f/4.0 ss 1/2000 ISO800 same evening as above before the black labx interrupted us and the sun was above the horizon and just because another couple - from the sunnier/earlier evening :) @f/2.0 ss1/8000 ISO200 @f/1.4 ss 1/1250 ISO200 I'm not sure I like the editing on this next one, but anyway, Saxon :) @f/4.0 ss 1/250 ISO800

look forward to them :) thanks, been using it on the Canon50D thanks! um, pretty good I think, I keep trying it out in difficult situations, but I thought on a nice sunny early evening @f/2 it worked well (the last shot of Chester there, I have a few more in that series I'll try and get up soon) :) might even be better than the 105mm at least in terms of speed of focussing, but it's hard to say really, I also got some ok ones @ f/4.0 if I remember correctly

yeh, prior to the past few weeks (and even inbetween) the 105mm has been my choice, or I go wide with the 35mm - those 2 are by far my favs atm more will be coming as it seems I lied and do have some Saxon shots! just may take me a while revjo: I think I'd prefer a 135mm length over 85mm actually, was thinking of a prime 200mm (but don't want to think about it too much or it may end up here lol)

hey I said I'd practise with the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 lens for a week (it's been at least 2 if not 3 now) and do a review anyway, I find this a little tricky because everyone has different needs, but I'll just give my general thoughts and add some pics :) general feel: I most enjoy taking my camera out'n'about to the park (parks/beaches) with my dogs, I often walk there and back with at least 2 dogs, and felt this lens was heavier than I was comfortable with, not overly so, but I'd be less inclined to take it for that reason ... having said that, I specifically chose it the other day (after working with it for the few weeks, I felt more comfortable choosing it) it took a bit of getting used to such a shallow depth of field for it's length, I love shooting wide-open but found that undoable with white dogs in the sun, Chester and Lotus were often overexposed in these circumstances nice portrait lens @ f/5.0 ISO400 mid-morning light same as above @ f/1.4 @ f/1.4 ISO800 late evening (sun had definitely gone down) action? same evening @ f/1.4 ss 1/640 ISO800 same evening @f/1.4 ss 1/1000 ISO800 early evening @f/2.0 ISO200 (remember I mentioned chopping off the dogs legs with this lens?) same early evening @f/2.0 ss 1/8000 ISO200 eta: hmm no Saxon pics, that would be the weight issue, he can be a bit of a handful and taking the heavier camera/lenses to the park with him is not something we are up to as yet :) of course I have loads more pics ... and will upload some more as soon as I sort them out properly any questions? comments? or your 85mm lens pics? feel free :D

some beautiful nature shots in here so far! kirislin - that dude in the first shot nice red carpet backdrop too :D and Tag @f/2.8 is nicer to my eye - just my general bias ... hope he's feeling better now! huga - nice green background "compression" this is the kind of dog shot I immediately thought of for this challenge :) Canon 50D 30mm @f/1.4 ss 1/250 ISO400