Hi all,
I am new to this forum. I have owned/bred Belgian Sheepdogs for over 40 years. Last year I got my first DSLR an Olympus E500. I shot RAW and develop in Lightroom. I also use Photoshop CS2.
In May my female Ekko had a litter of puppies and since then I have taken lots of photos. I also compete in agility trials and have experimenting taking photos at trials.

Here is one of my favorite puppy photos:
http://delafuseebelgians.com/aug_13_red-1.jpg

I also try to get action shots of the dogs playing:
http://delafuseebelgians.com/jordan_puppy_runninga.jpg

http://delafuseebelgians.com/photo_FRAME-227.jpg

But my favorite shots are head studys. Here are a couple of examples:

http://delafuseebelgians.com/photo_FRAME-223.jpg

http://delafuseebelgians.com/head_shots-9.jpg

Here is an example of one taken at an agility trial in a covered arena:

http://delafuseebelgians.com/rusty's%20second%20dog-1.jpg

welcome, glad to have you aboard! Looks like youre much like many on this site, you picked up a camera and now youre hooked! Congratulations. Thanks for posting I hope to see more of your images in the days to come!

Hi Sharon,

Welcome to the community. May I ask a bit about the Belgian sheep dog? How big do they get? They are beautiful creatures.

James

The standard for males is 24-26 inches, bitches 22-24 inches. My dogs tend to be on the smaller side, females around 22 inches and 50 lbs. The males are around 24 inches and 60 lbs.

Hi, Sharon. I'm new here, too, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to read a few posts and say hello. I love headshots, too, and yours are awesome. I love the way you really capture the dog's expression. They look like they know they're being photographed. My main question for you, though, is how did you get them to stand still?

Hi Sharon,
welcome aboard! I really like Belgian Sheepdogs as a breed but find them hard to light at shows. That fur doesn't reflect light as well as the smooth coats and it takes some work in Photoshop to bring it up on the black dogs.

This is a very versatile and hardy breed. James, you should see these guys actually working a herd sometime. They are awesome.

Jim

Most of my head shots are taken outside,unposed. I am been taking pictures of the puppies since they were born so it is natural for them to see me with the camera. In alot of cases I am sitting in a chair and use a 40-150 mm lens f3.5/4.5. My dogs seem to have the ears up most of the time.

It is tough at times to get pictures of the black dog in low light. I have pre-ordered the new 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 lens. Hopefully this will improve the abiliy to get photos of the dogs.

welcome to the forum; just curious, how do you feel the new lens will help your ability to get photos since you have the 40-150 now.

The 50-200 is a much nicer lens than the 40-150. Especially the new SWD version. I have the old 50-200 and will also be adding in the swd version in the near future. It is a stop faster, the bokeh is better. In low light, that extra stop will help

Sharon, your dogs are beautiful. I do not shoot raw with my Oly cameras because I have found the jpgs to have better color than any of the raw converters out there besides Studio or Master and both of them are way too slow to be useful. I got tired of shooting raw and not liking the results as much as the jpgs sooc. So, I simplified my life and just shot highest quality jpg.