I got the opportunity to shoot some hunting dog field tests last year. Most shots were out of focus and frustrating, but it did test the limits of my skills. Enjoy!

BTW, could someone point me in the direction of embedding my pictures in the body of my message?

Thanks in advance!

When you go to imbed the image, click the "image" button and then paste your url into it. It ought to show up at that point

With running subject like dogs, make sure you have a fast enough shutter speed and are using C-af.

One of the very best ways to catch fast action, especially if you lack the fast expensive auto focus lenses is to pre focus. Rather than trying to chase the action with a lens that cant keep up, try this.

It's all timing but it's really easy and very effctive.

you can anticipate the dogs movements, especially when they are returning to their trainier. You pick an area where you know the dog is going to be, maybe a second or two in from of him/her, focus on it, and when the dog gets to that area, you take the shot.

With the kind of light you had in that shot, you could even stop down a ways to give yourself a bit more dof. . .

Thanks for your post! I was using center focus at 200mm with a 70-200 f4 L lense. Shutter was at 1000 F6.3. Don't think it was camera shake, since the grass seems pretty sharp, but at that distance, that's probably the culprit. I don't have online pictures, so your url advice doesn't make sense to me unless I have yet more to learn. Thanks again!

"I don't have online pictures, so your url advice doesn't make sense to me unless I have yet more to learn."

Hey Walter,

You need your own server to embed images directly into your post. Smugmug/pbase/etc. also seem to work (the various file sharing sites). In the mean time, we offer for folks to upload images as an attachment because not everyone has a webspace that they can use.

James