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Dock Dogs

I went to the new Discovery Green Park in Downtown Houston this morning where they were holding the Dock Dog competitions. I have been a bit stagnant as of late and having a hard time getting motivated to shoot. I just bought the new Nikon D3 camera about one month ago and you might think that just that fact alone would have me out shooting at every available moment, but it was not that way. My day job has gotten me so down and out lately that the creative juices almost stopped flowing completely. It changed this morning however, thank goodness, and the desire to shoot came over me once more.

I have never tried any kind of sports or action photography until this morning. The D3 was made for that kind of photography and I was finally able to have a go at it. The camera did all of the work. I was just hanging on to the back of it. The dogs were great athletes, most anyway, and they really do love doing what they do. Their handlers could hardly control them and keep them from diving into the water before they were ready. There were some young ones too, three months old, just getting started in the sport, and they were a bit hesitent. They knew what they were supposed to do, they just couldn't quite bring themselves to do it. I stayed for only an hour because Houston, at the end of June, can be unbearably hot and humid. In that time though I was able to get in some good practice and I came away with some photos that I really liked. I still need to work on my panning and keeping things framed properly but with some creative cropping I was still able to salvage shots.

These are two shots from the same jump. The dog's name is Cricket and she was a very young but talented entry. Her handler was also the youngest in the competition. They worked well together. She ended up jumping around 18 feet. The longest I saw was 22 feet and just for a reference, the world record is a little over 28 feet. That is quite a leap.
James Newman

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Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
...I have never tried any kind of sports or action photography until this morning. The D3 was made for that kind of photography and I was finally able to have a go at it. The camera did all of the work. I was just hanging on to the back of it....
Hi James,

Funny you should mention this but I have experienced similar feelings quite recently.
Last weekend I took my new 40D and 70-200 f2.8 combo to a beach volleyball tournament in the town. Now I know that there is no comparison between the lowly 40D and the big guys such as the D3 or the 1D(s)III. But it can shoot a respectable 6fps and it is much quicker than my 5D. Also, it has a burst buffer of 19 RAW images. With the newest generation of SanDisk Extreme III cards (30MB version), I have reached a 21 frame burst rate. So combined with the f2.8 70-200, it was very smooth sailing. I took sports pictures like I never took before. It was as if the camera knew what to do ;-).

Coming back to the pictures, they are excellent, also considering the fact that it was your first try at photographing sport events. Thanks for sharing these with us.

Cheers,
 

Kathy Rappaport

pro member
Beautiful

These are really lovely - the form of the dog - a Brittney Spaniel, I think - is captured perfectly. Dog sport is quite popular now in various forms - Freestyle Dance, Agility, Earthdog and many other events. A great way to practice for certain. Glad it got your creative juices flowing.
 
Thanks for looking and the comments. The dogs were a blast to watch and photograph. You can tell just by watching that they really do love what they do. This spaniel was one of my favorites and her form was impeccable. She never took her eyes off of that throw.

I know what you are saying Cem. The D3 has a 51 point auto focus with 3D tracking that is really something else. The camera really did a fine job under the fast changing situations and made taking the shots extremely easy.

I hope you don't mind but I wanted to post a couple of more that I particularly enjoyed. It's more the subject matter than the technical aspect that interests me here. This little girl was three months old and it was her first "competition". The handlers are given 2 minutes on the dock and they have to have their dog hit the water within that time frame. This one was so funny because she just would not jump in. They threw three or four different toys into the pool but she would not go. Her owner was completely exasperated. You can see on the right hand side, there is a ramp that the dogs use to climb out of the pool after they jump. This one turned things around and went down the ramp and into the water. Then she swam out, got her toy, turned around and swam back. The crowd went crazy.

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Kathy Rappaport

pro member
Some dogs are

Some dogs are smarter than we give them credit for. That was one smart Lab! And a 10 on the capture. The eye level view of the dog with the toy was great. 3 months! Wow. She will be a formidable competitor.
Love that series.
 
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