Dog

[Erik DeBill]

http://www.solarphage.net/images/422-2249-long_dog-pad.jpg

My cat is named Dog, in case anyone is confused. He very patiently waited while I set up the light stand and everything.

580EX with CTO gel at 1/2 power shooting into umbrella above right. Camera was a 20d w/ 50mm f1.8. ISO 400, f8 @ 1/125.

Dog is an orange cat, and I find that a CTO brings out his colors much better than just straight flash does. Of course, half the time I convert to b&w anyway. I like the softer light of the umbrella, rather than direct flash, since hard light seems to do bad things to fur.

Here's what he looks like in color:

http://www.solarphage.net/images/422-2262-dog-pad.jpg

So... A) what do you think? B) color or b&w? C) more depth of field? less?

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi Erik
I won't discuss b&w as you may know that this is not my cup of tea. When I was a baby I falled in love with colors (colours) and I remain fidèle...
As to your dog, it is a nice little fellow, in order to enhance his fur colo(u)r and the shadows, I would have placed him on a white armchair. With plenty DOF.
The white thing in he's back is not welcome and I would have turn around (and up and down) him while shooting to find interesting angles.

Have a nice day!

[Asher Kelman]

This is the perfect chance for masking! Getv that cat on light grey with perfect hairs with no red in the edge!

Any takers?

Asher

[Erik DeBill]

Hi Erik
I won't discuss b&w as you may know that this is not my cup of tea. When I was a baby I falled in love with colors (colours) and I remain fidèle...
As to your dog, it is a nice little fellow, in order to enhance his fur colo(u)r and the shadows, I would have placed him on a white armchair. With plenty DOF.
The white thing in he's back is not welcome and I would have turn around (and up and down) him while shooting to find interesting angles.

Have a nice day!

That white thing in his back... on the left in the color one? The edge of a laptop. Every time I tried to move it it seemed to disturb him. In the b&w picture I painstakingly cloned it out. It was quite a bit of work, and since I don't consider the color one to have quite so much promise I skipped it.

One of the tricks with animals is that unless you're quite lucky you can't really "pose" them. You can shoot from different angles, but I've yet to see the cat that will sleep when and where I want it to. Dogs are more eager to please. For these shots I was working halfway between landscape mode, where you pretty much just look for your scene, and portrait mode, where you actively pose and light. Find the shot, manipulate the lighting, shoot.

[Ray West]

I had a play with this - not too successfully - not good enough to publish.

It is time consuming selecting fluffy outlines, so I didn't bother with that. Instead I selected the red cushion colours, and simply desaturated to grey, in a number of layers. However, I was then left with a grey tint in the lhs of the fur (cats rhs) due to the reflection from the red cushions. This looked unnatural. However, masking the cat, left the reddish tinge to the fur, which again looked unnatural. I gave up.... Green or blue would be easy, maybe white, but grey got me stumped. I got the perfect hairs, but not the perfect shadows/reflections. Maybe I need to fire up another brain cell.

Best wishes,

Ray