Pet Portraits by Melanie

Focusing your Camera and Using Flash

Focusing on a dog can be difficult especially if your subject has black or very dark fur.

If you are finding that you are getting out of focus photos, it may be due to camera shake. There are a couple of remedies you can try – the obvious one is to use a tripod, but this isn’t always easy as you don’t always carry a tripod where ever you go. A trick I use is to lean on an object, for instance a wall, lay on the floor and lean on my elbows, or even lean your arm on a person to steady the camera.

If you have a higher-end digital camera, you will find that they have auto focus, which automatically focuses the camera at your subject's distance. This is very handy as the camera will allow for various light conditions, and even compensate for camera shake. If you are really into photography you may have a digital camera, which not only has auto focus but manual focus too, which will override the auto focus so that you can focus on the subject yourself. This will also allow you to set the exposure a few stops brighter or darker.

This photo was taken with auto focus on a bright sunny day but because it's a black dog the shadows are too dark		This time I took the photo, still using auto focus but using the flash. We can now see all the detail in the face and fur.

Focusing and using flash - These photos were taken on the same day using a digital camera with an auto focus. You can see that using the flash has rectified the problem of the dark shadows.I used redeye flash which enabled me to take a photo without producing the red/glassy eye effect.