Went to the woods today with Carlos. A gray and dull day, so: SB800 to the rescue
I like to share a few with you. All shot with my D700, 70-300VR and an SB800 to get some contrast.

195mm F5.6 1/160 iso400

Digging 2 the most. Looks least flash like

nicely done, Ray. That Carlos is looking mighty stout and healthy. What kind of beer does he drink?

Joe

In addition to Joes above question, who cleans his teeth? Great images, by the way.

...these exposures are "nailed"....nice shots.

Beautiful stuff. GREAT balance with the flash... give us the details! Did you scale it back manually? Bounce it?

I agree with Gregory, the second one has the most "natural" look...

Guy

Great shots!!! No.2 is my Favourite, thats what my bulldog do when he finished playing hehehe....regaining energy i believe

Wonderful shots Raymond, 1 and 2 are my favorites. Good to see he's recovered well from his surgeries

I like 1 and 2. Nice doggy.

dj dunzie wrote:
Beautiful stuff. GREAT balance with the flash... give us the details! Did you scale it back manually? Bounce it?
+1!

Thank you all. About the flash, it's pretty straight forward. There wasn't much to bounce so i've used the sb800 bare on the camera. TTL BL mode since it's outside and there is still a good amount of natural light. I've dialed both flash and exposure down with 1/3. Camera was in Manual.

That's it. Looking at these pictures made me realize i should use more flash outside. Despite the fact that the D700 has great iso capabilities. One tends to get sloppy and rely completely on the iso capabilities, while a bit of flash yields a better image. Sure that's not always possible, but in this case it was.

once again; thanks for the comments so far!

Carlos is my idol, and those pics give him justice

Love#2 specially, thanks for keeping us in the loop, John

Wonderful Raymond.
I like number 2 as well.
Looks more natural than 3.

Does that mean no more NX2?

Beautiful shots. Very nice contrast from the flash. I for one like the flash look. These are awesome. Great work.

freespirit wrote:
Wonderful Raymond.
I like number 2 as well.
Looks more natural than 3.

Does that mean no more NX2?


Correct... it's LR nowadays...

Raymond,

Beautiful pictures, you are lucky to have such an accommodating subject.

I have a LightRoom question for you, are you converting your files to dng or are you keeping the raw files?

Thanks
Monty

Nice shots Ray looks like Carlos is doing great! My Gizmo has torn ligament in his hind leg and has really been struggling, he might be going in for surgery too

montym wrote:
Raymond,

Beautiful pictures, you are lucky to have such an accommodating subject.

I have a LightRoom question for you, are you converting your files to dng or are you keeping the raw files?

Thanks
Monty

I keep the raw files. It's just as fast so i don't feel the need to convert to dng at this moment. Of course i have the xmp sidecar files, but those are small. Storing the complete rawfile in a dng gives large files so that's not a suitable option either and converting to only dng is a bit tricky too. When nikon announces NX3 i want to try that straight away too.

so for now i keep the raw files. And if they become obsolete or real proprietary, we will know soon enough and i can always convert them at that time.

Dan Bellyk wrote:
Nice shots Ray looks like Carlos is doing great! My Gizmo has torn ligament in his hind leg and has really been struggling, he might be going in for surgery too

Ooh that is so sad. How old is Gizmo?

i'll send you a pm..

...Dan....my friend's dog had a rear leg torn ligament (knee)....they opted for the more expensive surgery (a "strut" or metal "brace" was fixed into the bone) rather than the "over the knee nylon strap" type surgery....and the pooch is doing excellent....walks and moves like it never happened. We watched Carlos' progress when going through this.

Raymond, what kind of cheese and chocolate diet is Carlos on,,

always enjoy his photos,,

Derry

Dan,
I have a friend who's dog had torn cruciate ligaments in the knee. Instead of surgery he opted for stem cells. They harvested cells from his hip grew them out and injected them into the knee. two weeks later the dog was good as new. maybe better. His dog is an older performance dog and was back doing agility in about 3 weeks. The ligaments were completely severed. Check with Colorado State University Veterinary - I'll bet they can point you to someone in your area that could do it.