Harvey

Harvey is a playful Bernese belonging to a friend. I did a portrait shoot of him yesterday. K1 + FA* 85mm 1.4 (my favourite portrait lens)

click for larger image

I used two flashes. One in a gridded softbox pointed almost directly at him in this picture (8 o'clock position). One in a reflective umbrella at the 4 o'clock position at 1 stop less power to provide fill. ISO 100 1/180 and f8 in Manual. The flashes were also in manual and I dial down their output until the highlights register about 75% on the histogram. I find this works well to keep the black background "black". I then bring up the highlights/midtones in pp by dodging.

This works well with dogs with predominantly dark colours.

Easy His owner is standing in front of him with a bag of treats.

Thanks for all the comments. It always helps to have a handsome model of course and Harvey fits the bill.

ps. He happens to be Rio's best friend

Thanks Bill. One thing I really notice when doing pp work on pictures with the K1 is how little output sharpening is required. With my previous camera, the K10D I would generally use USM settings of 80/0.60/1. With the K1 I rarely go above 25 for the amount slider,unless I am creating an image for print.