I am an equal opportunity saver, that to say that, I’m not promoting one pet store over another. I just have a coupon for Petsmart.

This pup has it figured out. Stay safe and hydrated everyone.

How funny at least we know he can hit a target. This would be way funny if it wasn’t  for the fact that he is MY dog. No, I didn’t teach him that trick and YES, I did wash out the bucket and fill it with fresh water.

To achieve what your camera considers to be correct exposure your aperture and shutter speed need to balance to let in enough light to expose your image. The exposure is the image created by the light entering the camera and being recorded onto the digital sensor. Most cameras these days have a built-in meter to give you the correct exposure.

Yes, your camera gives you the correct exposure but you still have choices to make. Remember your f/stop controls the depth of focus and your shutter speed controls movement.

Aperture/f-stop
(depth of field/focus)

 4   4.5   5   5.6   6.3   7.1   8   9   10   11   13   14   16  18   20   22    25   29   32

 60   80   100   125   160   200   250   320   400   500   640   800   1000

 Shutter Speed
(movement)

 ASA/ISO   100   200   400   800   1600

All the numbers in bold are considered full stops. The f-stop, shutter speed and ISO go hand-in-hand to set the correct exposure. The meter tells you what the light in the room is and you manipulate the f/stop, shutter speed and ISO to give you the look you want.

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Stay with me now. You may need to refer to the guide above. If your camera meter reads ISO 400, f/8 @ 125. This is a great standard exposure. But what if you are photographing someone running. 125th of a second won’t stop the action. Your runner will be blurry. You need to increase your shutter speed 2 stops to 500 but if you go up on your speed you have to go down the same amount(2 stops) on your f/stop so the exposure is still correct. That means now your exposure is ISO 400, f/4 @ 500.
So now let’s do a hard one. Your meter reads ISO 400, f/8 @ 125 for a group shot of 20 people. You want 2 stops more depth of field so that’s f/16 but you can’t shoot people 2 stops less 30th of a second because you will likely get blurry people. So how do you make this work? That’s right you change your ISO 2 stops. So your exposure is ISO 1600, f/16 @ 125.
Give it time and practice, practice, practice.

So what did the photographer do right?
The photographer got down on Fido’s level.
The subject is to one side which makes it more interesting.
The colors just pop, it’s so alive.

by Flickr Member Terrie Schweitzer

by Flickr Member Ed Costello

by Flickr Member Tudor

by Flickr Member Scott Kinmartin

by Flickr Member Martine Fryer

by Flickr Member bullcitydogs

A faster shutter speeds will freeze action whereas a slower speeds create a blurred effect. When you set your shutter speed on your camera, you’ll see numbers  60, 125, 250, 500, 1000 and so on. These actually represent 1/60^th of a second, 1/250^thof a second and so on. The higher the number say 1000, the faster the shutter speed and the smaller the number like 15, the slower the shutter speed.

I suggest using a tripod for speeds lower than 1/60^th of a second unless you want a blurry image which sometimes is a really cool effect. Fast-moving objects will need a faster shutter speed, around 1/500 of a second or higher, in order to freeze the subject in action.
Your shutter speed is all about controlling action or movement in your image.

f/ 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32 are considered full stops. All cameras have these numbers but you’ll notice that you have way more numbers. If you have a Canon camera generally they incorporate third stops like 5.6, 6.3, 7.1, 8 where Nikon uses half stops. All this to say you will always see the full f/stops consecutively though they may start at f/5.6 and may only go to f/22.

f/stops can be confusing at first. The f/stop numbers refer to how open or closed the aperture on the lens is.  f/1.4 would be a wide-open aperture on most lenses, whereas f/22 would be a virtually closed aperture. The WIDER the aperture, the more light that comes through the camera the LESS of your photo will be in focus. So the SMALLER the aperture, the less light allowed the MORE of your image will be in focus.

I have discussed Depth of Field in an earlier post. The reason I mention it here is that your f/stop is part of what controls the focus depth as you can see from the illustration above.

This one is a little harder to get but with practice it will come.

So what did the photographer do right?
Shooting in black and white makes this image a bit mysterious.
This angle is so striking and unusual even though we view our pets from about often.
The focus only on the nose gives the photo a fine art quality.

by Flickr Member bruno

by Flickr Member Ranger Gord

by Flickr Member starfish235

by Flickr Member Marcin Kargol

by Flickr Member Florence

by Flickr Member ManWithAToyCamera

by Flickr Member Laura Styrman

by Flickr Member Tim

ISO/ASA   100   200   400   800   1600 3200

ISO, or film speed, is a setting to determine how quickly an image will be captured by either the film or digital sensor. The higher the ISO, the quicker the image will be captured and the less light that is required. The lower the ISO, the longer it takes for the image to be captured and the more light you will need.

ISO depends on your surroundings and the amount of light available.
It’s a good rule of thumb for digital cameras in general, to use:
100/200 outdoors, bright light
400 in the shade, overcast outdoors, inside with lots of light
800/1600 indoors, low-light conditions, sports or action.

The lower the film speed, the lower the digital noise (or film grain) and the higher the contrast. The higher you’re ISO, the more digital noise is created in the image and the lower the apparent contrast.

Now see that wasn’t so hard. If you ever have any questions please ask in the comment box below.

I think one of the hardest lessons we have to learn when trying to get good photographs of our pets is to just relax and go with the flow. Kris has talked at length on this blog about patience and having fun.  In trying to figure out what to write about today I looked through some of my own artwork and photography and this painting of my puppy Pixel jumped out at me as the perfect example of going with the flow.

Back in 07 when she was just a feisty young pup I decided I would buy a few daisies and take her out back and have her pose in  a very “Hallmark Card” sort of way with one long stemmed daisy placed gently in her mouth. Well she had other ideas!  As you can see from the digital painting above it all worked out ok anyway.  I just kept shooting and allowed her to be her playful self. The result was way better that what I had imagined.