Photos of our four legged hunting friends

[courtgreene]

Hey_poolboy, I grew up with bloodhounds, Loved them. Seeing that picture takes me back to red, opie, Esther, and other fantastic hounds that I had in the past. Thanks for sharing. I don't think there's a better breed out there and would have one now except my wife has a thing about drool. In fact the reason we have a beagle is because it's got the same personality of a bloodhound without said drool. don't get me wrong, I love the beagle and he's probably a better dog overall than the bloodhounds I've had, but man I miss them.

 

[ThePunisher'sArmory]

Here's my Dixie. The only thing she gets to hunt is babbits and squirrels in the back yard but she's a good dog. These pics are off of a camera phone so they are not the best.

 

[hey_poolboy]

Courtgreene, this is our first bloodhound. We've always been big dog people. (under 100# is still a cat) He really is a great dog. We are his second owner, I wish we had gotten him earlier so I could have at least made an attempt to train him to trail. Not sure I would have hunted him, but it would be kinda cool.

 

[Fernando]

Quoting PT: “He may be dumb, but he looks to be full of personality and, if your photos are any indication, one hell of a good dog...”

He is quite professional in what we does: tracking, finding and catching animals, and he didn’t require much training. When he was very little (2 months old or so) he didn’t leave my girlfriend alone and he stalked her wherever she went, so one day she was fishing black bass with a rapala and ever time a fish got lose from the hooks he catch it has soon has the fish hit the grown and give it to her, lol, and the b#stard even tried to pursue some in the shallow water, lol.

And about the bunny: I catch him by the road last year, when he was still very small. I release him this year, already adult. My dog never laid his teeth on him. In fact, even if he had bitted the bunny he wouldn’t kill him because he is very careful when bringing stuff (dead or alive).

Poolboy, I know a guy that as one dog just like yours. He his a slow barking dog but highly effective in driven hunts (all other dogs follow him).

Matt, I think I never saw a Jack Russell Terriers before. Is it common in the states? Has another name in Europe?

DIM, pretty cool that picture of him with the cat. Black dogs are more difficult to get right in a photo, because black colour tends to fool the camera’s light sensor and we usually get uncompensated images. But that one turned out ok.

Punisher, I wish my phone took photos like that, lol. I got a old nokia.


Here is Thor on the beach, lol:

 

[BRad704]

After seeing Fernando's pics, these are certainly not going to impress with quality, but I shall try to make up the difference with substance.

Chloe, shepard mix at about 8 months old when we got her




On her first trip off leash at the park




Yeah, I dunno...


Kylie, pure Scott-type American Bulldog, about 2yo


This is her spot when I work from home




All these pics make me want to leave work, go load them up, and head to the park so they can run and swim!

 

[Fernando]

Nice pics, Brad, but the best of all is the last IMHO, because it is different. It looks like an architect picture, lol: simple but effective (calls out for our attention). Regardless of what equipment we have in our hands (expensive or not, with lots of mega pixels or few), we can make our photographs much more interesting, much more art type looking. How?

Basic rule:

Don’t always leave things in the centre of the photo! In photography, as in other visual arts, there are rules for composing objects in an image. One of most important is the rule of the thirds. You can see it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

Use the intersections! Directors in movies use them, so why don’t you?

Now, other rules to know when photographing animals (and other things like girlfriends, lol):

First rule:

Animal pictures must be taken at their level! We shouldn’t take pictures of them from above, because if we do that we will show a normal perspective, and we don’t want it to look only normal. We should take our pictures almost at ground level!

Second rule:

We must take several pictures, so we can choose to show only the best. Everybody (including professionals) take lots of crappy pictures (you would be amazed, lol). In 20 photos, only 7 or 8 of them will be good, and only 3 or 4 will be great. And from that 3 or 4, you show one or two! With time, that ratio will change, and more good photos will present themselves (but you will still get a lot of crappy pictures as the rest of us, no matter how pro you are).

Third rule:

Try to take pictures from different angles, no mater how strange they look. Best photos will be the weirdest, trust me, for with those photos you will amaze you and others. Everybody knows how a dog or a cat looks like, so we must show common things in different ways.

Fourth rule:

No matter how ugly is the thing that you are photographing: it has a perspective that is sweeter, funnier or simply appealing. Take your time. If you do your job well, the photo will be great.



Fifth rule:

Don’t get intimidated with other’s guy photos. You can and will do better than him. Take you time.

 

[rtpzwms]

Ok I'll play not much for quality photo's as they were taken on my phone. But theses two guys give us great joy and a lot of laughs! If you want to see something funny get your dogs to chase a ball on a marble floor. With no ability to turn on a dime they just don't get it....

Moose

Squirrel

Moose is the brainy one he thinks and you can watch him do it. You should see him hunting Squirrel around the sofa.. funny as H***!
With Squirrel the picture says it all... That's him.
Both are toy poodles and fun to be around... well we love them.

 

[Fernando]

To illustrate the rule of the thirds (you can’t get simpler than this):



Ps: no, I was not trying to run over rabbits in the shoulder of the road, lolol

_______

Rtpz, I can't see your pics. Will try at home, with a diferent pc

 

[BRad704]

Thanks for the kind words Fernando... Honestly, I DO try and take pics from different angles, and be "artistic" about my pictures, but typically, they are taken with my 5MP phone-cam... Just like that last one I posted...

My problem with taking pics of the dogs is that as soon as they see the camera, they run over to me to see what I am hiding behind, or holding... sigh...

Our regular digi-cam is just a Cannon Powershot ($150ish) and it basically sucks in ANY condition other than bright sunlight. In ANY condition but full sun, it will be blurry. I think there is something wrong with the automatic settings. My phone takes far better pics.

I think we'll go to the park tonite and I'll try to get some new pics.

 

[Fernando]

Phones are not the best equipment to get a good photo, but we have to use whatever we have around us and try to do it the best way we can. There will always by guys that have better equipment than us.

Photography for us hunters is just to have some fun. We are better with the guns, lol.

As I said, nice picture:



This one too, DIM:



Rtpz, my home pc doesn’t show me your pictures either. Am I the only one?

 

[Fernando]

Another cool photo (from camera phone):



Sorry for the blue wire, Punisher, I had to let Dixie go, lolol

 

[rtpzwms]

Fernando not sure why you can't see them they are std jpeg files from my iPhone. So I just attached the two files to this message... I can view them in paint. So you should be able to view them with almost anything.

 

[Fernando]

I forget to say another tip for animal or people photography:

Try to leave some room, some free space, to here animals or people are looking.



If you don’t, you may have a lot of grass to make when you get home to crop your photo



Free space can also be used to give the idea of entering or leaving a photo.

______

RTPZ, now I can see them! Very cute, your dogs. But you have to do something about that hair, man

Mine’s was shorter and I hit it with the machine:



Well he looked like an hyena for some days, but he got over it eventually, lolol

 

[BRad704]

I dont see them either... but I can see the attachments just fine. What hosting service are you using? I know that I only get to see about half the photos on forums while on my work-network due to filtering...

 

[Ashcons]

My wife and I own a pair of long-haired miniature dachshunds who fancy themselves as squirrel hunters. Every time we see one, they chase it if able, or go into a whining/howling fit and struggle for all their 12 pounds (5.44kg) are worth at the end of the leash if they can't give chase. They know the word "squirrel" enough to perk up and run around excitedly at its mention.

Their stuffed squirrel from Petco is as close as they're going to get, based on what I've seen of them constantly outsmarted by the tree rats. They do like to flush doves up from the park lawn...maybe there's some hope for them yet

I will try to post a picture or two from my phone when I get home.

 

[rtpzwms]

I was using THR to host the photos.

 

[Fernando]

A clip of the creature when young, lol:
Video hosted in tinypic.com

Thor's clip

 

[joel.favre]

I'll put up some of mine. I am just getting into photography, so I am experimenting alot with different lenses, light, and settings.
This is my girl Lilly, she is a Bernese Mountain Dog mix, and just an amazing companion, perfectly happy to lay down and watch tv or go outside and play around in the sandpit for hours!

 

[Fernando]

Joel, she seems very calm. Contrary to my dog (that has a lot of white), I bet she would be great to hunt boars at night. Boars would only see her if she smiled

Test as much lenses as you can get your hands on, because it is a very good way to learn about their capability to handle light.

 

[DIM]

Yes Fernando, I did notice the grass, that's why I spend Sunday moving my lawn Fernando I do see where cropping the picture makes a difference to much grass and black dog isn't the perfect match. Fernando, can you tell me what filters do you use, or what's options are out there as far as filters?

Thanx,

DiM

 

[ThePunisher'sArmory]

Hey that cool Fernando. I would have posted it large but I don't use a photo host. Sure do love that stupid dog. She is crazy as all get out but she's a sweet dog. She's a black lab/jack russle mix so she would have been a good flusher. I just didn't have time to work with her. She is very...very smart....Too smart sometimes. She follows most commands very well and loves to play fetch. But sometimes she will see a squirrel and just take off. The neighbors may think i'm pretty mean when I yell her name at the top of my lungs. She always comes back though. Now that she's a little older she pretty much stays in the yard and knows her boundries.

 

[Fernando]

Back again.

About filters:

Glass filters with colours are a thing of the past IMHO, because today we have a million digital filters in major editing software (free or not) and in plug-ins. I don’t have colour glass filters, although I’ve tried some with lousy outcome, lol:



Even the dog thinks they are boring:



And colour glass filter have a great disadvantage: they will permanently alter the photo (you can't get back normal colours once you use them).

Digital filters, on the other end, are cheap (or free), unlimited, not permanent, easy to use and you can apply them in your home, when, how and if you want it.

Here one pic of my girlfriend in “Cabo da Roca”, the western point of Europe (Portugal, obviously, lol), with a digital filter (day to night):


(hope she doesn’t kill me, lol)

That said about colour glass filters, move on to other glass filter. I have 3 glass filters, one infra-red (rarely used and last month lended to my brother), one Neutral Density 8 (ND8) and one polarizer.

The ND8 only purpose is to reduce light in photos like the flowing water. Rarely use it.


(There was a monster there, below the water, lol, can you see it?)


The polarizer (circular)… well, everybody should have one! Is reduces reflections in surfaces like water, change colour temperature, enhances contrast and is great to turn deep blue some parts of the sky. Cons: reduces light entering and will decrease a bit the speed (longer exposition time), so it is not very recommended for using in action photos unless there is a lot of light. Is most used for landscape shots.

I’m at work now and I haven’t any photos here that have been taken with the polarizer, but I will go lunch home soon, so I’ll bring a few from my home pc.

Now, there is a colour mode in most digital slr cameras that it’s called tungsten. It gives a bluish colour to pics. Some think that it is a filter, and in a way it works like that. It’s very useful in night shots and it can be funny in macro shots with bugs (bugs are already strange, but with tungsten some become even stranger).

A pic using tungsten:





Back to the dog, here is the b#stard again, in a slide:


Trying to spot distant rabbits, lol:

 

[Fernando]

I forgot to say something: polarizer filters must be rotated to work. This might seem obvious to some, but trust me, there are people that have polarizer filters and think that screwing it to the camera its all there is to do.

 

[BRad704]

I love this thread...

 

[Fernando]

Ok, this is a pic taken with a polarizer filter screwed in the lens (taken from inside the car). I post it small because in this way it’s easier to see the graduation of the blue, but here you can see some 800x600 pics where polarizer was used (the ones that have deep blue sky):

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=537288&page=4

In this two the polarizer was also used (first is true hdr and second is fake hdr)





In this one, a polarizer was used not to graduate blues but to avoid most of water reflection.