My front garden is south-facing and well enclosed, so I thought I would have my first attempt at some Rusty action shots. I had the camera set on shutter priority at 1/1000 and the aperture was registering between F4 ( the largest on my 24-105 lens) and 6.3. The ISO was set to 400 and I used the High Speed Continuous setting. Rusty was on the tennis-ball setting…..

I was hoping to catch some shots of him pouncing on the ball in a ‘Scooby Doo’ fashion, but these were very hard to get pin-sharp. I may need to switch to my f 2.8 70-200mm lens for this next time in order that I can let more light in at the fastest shutter speeds. I was reasonably pleased with the following photo – but I will enlist some help with ball throwing next time in order that I can get a frontal view.

I was impressed by several elements of the photo shoot. Not by my technical achievements, but rather by the opportunities offered by my subject. Rusty’s flapping ears gave a real sense of movement to the shots, and freezing the action enabled me to capture expressions that would normally be missed by the human eye.

I was also fascinated with seeing how Rusty’s legs coordination looked when frozen by the camera. It is something that you cannot see working when things are going at normal speed.

The following shot is probably my favourite profile image of Rusty so far….He was bringing the ball back to me when he heard some interesting noises coming from the house opposite. His attention was grabbed by this and it enabled me to capture a really handsome shot.

From time to time Rusty would play a really ‘puppy-like’ game with the ball, and I especially liked this close up….

My final shot for my blog today is one of Rusty pouncing on the tennis ball. You can still see how his ribs are showing, which is amazing considering the amount he is now eating !

I am really pleased with my first action shot session – and encouraged that with more practice I could take some fantastic shots of other people’s dogs……