Greyhound/Lurcher shots

daveh5200

Hi All,

Having just invested in lots of new camera equipment, and being new to this game, I wish to take some photos of my Greyhound/Lurchers in full running mode. I have a 18-55mm and a 55-300mm Nikon lens. Question is what settings should I use for this?

als

I guess you want to freeze the motion or show some feeling of the speed of the dogs. I would go for Shutter priority (freeze motion) or Manual mode if you want to choose both shutter speed and aperture (depth of field). The shutter speed you need depends on the distans to the dogs, the speed they have and how much you would like to freeze the motion.

Then Auto ISO to allow faster shutter speed without using unnecessary high ISO. On Focus Method you should go for AF-C for continuous focus tracking. The Focus Area would be 3D-tracking for (randomly) playing dogs and for dogs running on a track maybe Dynamic-area or 3D-tracking.

Then you can try panning i.e. a slower shutter speed and following the dog with the camera to semi-freeze the dog and get motion in the background. Requires a lot of practice but is a nice challenge.

bruto

The 55-300mm is "VRII", which may gain you as much as four stops of shutter speed, but it's still critical to keep your shutter speed fairly high when you're zoomed in.

It's worthwhile practicing with this. As @ALS says, panning, if you get good at it, can be very effective, as the dog will be less blurred but the background blurring will give a great impression of speed. The VR lens is pretty good for panning because the VR can keep the subject sharp at a relatively slower shutter speed, which will emphasize background motion blur.