JimG1 Loc: Waxahachie, TX

I'm going to shot a protective dog training class on Saturday. I'm curious as to initial setting for shooting. The area is mostly shaded. I have a canon 70D and will be using a Tamron F2.8 70-200 with VC. Any thoughts would be helpful.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

I would take the ISO to 1600, your 70D can handle it. If you are shooting hand held definitely use the VC, you'll need it. Depending on distance to subject you will need F5.6 to F8 to get enough depth of field to get the entire animal in focus. A shutter speed of at least 1/500sec will freeze their motion except for a dog running full speed will leave some leg blur, which isn't a bad thing as it will convey the impression of speed.
Take a couple practice shots and refine the settings to suit your needs.
Good luck.

JimG1 Loc: Waxahachie, TX

Thanks MT just the info I was looking for.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

If you have high- contrast lighting, a lower ISO will give you less of a chance of blowing highlights - particularly when your subject is in shadow and the background has sunlight on it. I would try to use ISO 400 and F5.6 as your starting point. If your subjects are active, turn off stabilization - it will not contribute anything when your shutter speed is faster than 1/500, and more than likely diminish lens acuity. Even within the range where stabilization may work, it reduces lens and camera shake at the expense of maximum sharpness. Use stabilization as a last resort.

Shooting raw is important, as you will likely be in contrasty light, and your images will benefit from "raw accessible dynamic range" (RADR) for better shadow and highlight detail retention, that would not be possible in out of camera jpgs.

Set your autofocus settings to single point and use the most accurate sensors. Use back button focus so that you can quickly acquire focus and still make small framing adjustments as you go along.

Practice panning with similarly sized moving subjects. This will increase the number of keepers.

Have fun and post some samples!

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Another suggestion. Remember to take the close ups at dog eye level. Even if action shots are closer than 20 or 30 feet , especially with larger dogs.

zigipha Loc: north nj

To me, blowing highlights = overexposure or reduced dynamic range.

Can someone explain to me how lowering iso can reduce chance of overexposure or enhances dynamic range?

SonyA580 Loc: FL in the winter & MN in the summer

When you said "mostly shade" I started to cringe. Nothing harder than getting the exposure right when taking pictures in partial sun/shade. If at all possible, choose one or the other.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Sure. A camera has the most dynamic range at base ISO. Some cameras, like the D800/810 will have up to 14.5 or so stops of dynamic range at ISO 100. But increasing the ISO will also increase noise, and the camera's ability to record useful information at the lowest light levels and still be above the higher noise level, while not increasing the maximum brightness that a camera can record - so the dynamic range becomes compressed. In essence, when you raise the ISO setting you are introducing underexposure, which limits the cameras ability to record shadow detail. Raising ISO electronically "turns up the volume" (increases the gain) on the sensor sensitivity but this also increases the gain on the noise. This is probably an extreme oversimplification but this website has a chart where you can list a camera and see what happens to usable dynamic range as ISO increases:

http://home.comcast.net/~nikond70/Charts/PDR.htm

Fuji Cameras do some fancy footwork with signals in their EXR processors, where increasing the ISO actually INCREASES the dynamic range headroom at the highlight end - using a process that to me sounds like pure magic, so none of the above applies to Fuji cameras.

diensthunds

Remember when the handler says "AUS, FUSE" to stand extremely still. Doesn't matter if you have the camera up to your face or not. Don't go walking off to get a better angle unless there is some sort of fencing between you and the dog that it can't jump. The commands mean "Out, heel" and are used when a dog has done a bite, is told to release and return the the handler. However, when they do this if the decoy (the person in the suit or wearing the bite sleeve) starts to move away "escape" most dogs will do a return bite to stop it. Last thing you want to do is be mistaken for an "escape". I'd suggest sitting down with the lead trainer and discussing safety protocols, where you can and can't be while they are working, etc.
I've seen people that have never decoyed before decide they just had to do it, get put in a suit, not get a sufficient enough safety brief and end up being sent to the ER for a bite to the hand because they didn't protect their exposed fingers.

dusty3d Loc: South Florida

Tough to take eye level photos with mini-dogs :)

diensthunds

I've never seen a pomeranian doing bite work before. Most of the dogs used are German Shepherds, Belgium Malinois, Rottweilers and occasionally a Doberman Pincher.
That means at a minimum the photographer will need to be kneeling or sitting on the ground to get low to the dogs perspective.