Railroad Engineer (1/14)

Oops... I uploaded these to Flickr, but forgot to post the blog!

f/2.5

f/2.0

I think the only thing truly in focus, above, is a small patch of fur on top of Zachary's muzzle, between nose and eyes.

Dog Blog Post #2337

Son needed a photo for his LinkedIn page, for his co-op class, and Hubby volunteered my services.

Keep in mind I have (literally) zero experience taking a formal (studio lighting) picture of a human.

So I rummaged through my stack of backdrop fabrics until I found one that sort of looked like something you might see in a photo studio, then pulled out my 135mm portrait lens - the one that requires me putting it in a different room in order to get the boys in the shot.

It can create gorgeous buttery backgrounds, however, and at its sweet spot is probably the sharpest lens I have.

Today I didn't need sharp, I needed my not-really-a-portrait-background fabric to blur.

Here is one of my test shots of the boys, where I was playing around with the aperture until I managed to blur the background out - basically having the lens nearly wide open.

That's way too shallow a DOF for long-muzzled dogs - see the "dreamy" shot above - but thankfully worked just fine with Son. :)

Photography Assignment

Daily Dog Challenge 1901. "Dress Up"

117 Pictures in 2017 - #83. "Vertical/Portrait Format"

100x - 6: Railroad Engineer

7 Days of Shooting - A Book Title - Shoot Anything Saturday: "The Railway Series" by Rev. Wilbert Awdry. There were 42 books in the series, first published in 1945. The series was then continued by his son Christopher.

The books formed the basis for the TV series "Thomas the Friends", staring Thomas the Tank Engine.

Son loved those shows as a youngster, and we spent many happy hours setting up wooden track and running those little trains over it. The printed board (which I have used as a prop a few times in the past) was not small, and it was years before I saw my Coffee Table again.

f/5.6

FWIW: I usually shoot f/7.1, which pretty much guarantees that BOTH boys will be in focus, even if they (and any props) are not exactly lined up - so long last the auto-focus doesn't go off on a tangent.

Obviously, f/5.6 (as above) works fine if you are only working with a single dog.

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