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

All so good I almost cannot choose. But if you twist my arm I will say 6/7/8/12

....followed by the rest.

A request Bill, can you link to a larger image. I use a 2560*1440 display and these are tiny for me.

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

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.

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

Have you saved and use any USER modes ?

very dramatic sky and loving the panorama crop

Lovely dramatic sky

No 2 for me.

Thanks Bill. I am glad you like the first one. On other sites where I have posted it I have not had the comments I was expecting. To me it is the stand out image. Perhaps I did not brighten it enough in pp. I exposed specifically to avoid blowing out the sky and had to bring out the dark tones in raw conversion.