This Basset Hound can really fly

I love photographing dogs outdoors in beautiful settings, but there are some great shots to be had indoors as well.

I got this terrific shot of a Basset Hound at an indoor dog show last year.  There were lots of spectators and I couldn’t find an open spot next to the ring where I could see the action.   I finally squeezed under a table at the far end of the ring, and after deciding it was too uncomfortable to shoot all scrunched over, I finally gave up and lay down flat on the floor (in the dog hair and various unidentified liquids).

The dogs were first examined by the judge at the far end of the ring, then they did a lap around the ring so the judge could watch them in action.  From where I was, the dogs would be trotting towards me on my left, then turn in front of me and trot away from me down the other side of the ring on my right.

I consider capturing great action shots a sport, so I’m always game to try but this time I had my work cut out for me.  Photographing a dog moving towards the camera is always tricky because the focus point is continuously changing and the shutter speed has to be fast enough to minimize motion blur.  Indoors, the relativeley low light levels – even in a well-lit room – make it even harder.  Plus, I wanted to catch the dog at the perfect spot in his stride to make a great picture, when his diagonal front and hind legs are maximally extended and the other two legs just meeting underneath.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this shot of the Basset Hound we call The Professor (GCh Splash’s The Professor) on the LCD of my camera.  Not only was it relatively sharp, but I had caught him completely off the floor at the perfect moment in his stride.  There’s a lot of  loose skin on a Basset Hound, and in most of my photos there are huge lips and ears flying all over the place, but in this shot everything was hanging down as pretty as can be, with just enough motion in his ears to show the strength and speed of his gait.  It was my prone position on the floor that allowed me to see all that air under the dog that looks like the dog, and from that angle it looks like the dog is coming straight at me (he was, but he was still about 35 feet away)

This is such a great shot of the dog, but what makes this photo special for me are the boy and his mother watching ringside.  Their eyes are following the dog and their enjoyment is captured in the wonderful expressions on their faces.  The little boy’s face is priceless.

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For those that are interested, here are the photography details:

I shot this with my Canon 5D II (great for photography indoors) and a 100-400 mm 5.6 IS lens (not so good for indoors because it’s slow, but I needed the zoom).  Even using a relatively high ISO 1600, the best shutter speed I could get was a relatively slow 1/100 sec with a wide open shutter (f/5.6).  I could have upped the ISO on this body without too much loss in image quality, but 1600 produced a nice file with plenty of detail in the subject.

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