OffTrail wrote:
These are great! She looks so busy and purposeful.
Thanks! Yes, she is always very busy exploring but also following her people/pack when we go for off-leash walking/hiking. Normally she doesn't go far away from us.
Lola is a Romanian street dog, not domesticated, so she grew up on the street.
Presumably a mongrel, not purebred, at least not assignable.
She was found starving with 9 puppies in a hole in the ground/forest in Romania and then placed with a local animal welfare organization.
We then took her in with one of her puppies, Lizzy.
This is a difficult case because her biggest enemy during her time as a street dog was certainly humans.
Dealing with stray dogs and the fact that there are free-roaming stray dogs/packs is different in these countries.
Although she has been with us for over 2 years now and is treated extremely well and gently, she can't get her fear out completely.
OffTrail wrote:
I'm envious of anyone with good off-leash dogs. Mine are total wanderers
Haha... she is still work in progress, still not as good as my old dog Venus was but Freyja is still very young. Only 2 years old in next April.
She is also more stubborn, I had it all the training planned out for her when I first brought her home. However, she throw me a curve-ball because she wasn't food or toy driven like at all! Hahaha... it is just now last 5-6 months which she has been getting more driven by food so the training is getting little bit easier haha...
Vento wrote:
Lola is a Romanian street dog, not domesticated, so she grew up on the street.
Presumably a mongrel, not purebred, at least not assignable.
She was found starving with 9 puppies in a hole in the ground/forest in Romania and then placed with a local animal welfare organization.
We then took her in with one of her puppies, Lizzy.
This is a difficult case because her biggest enemy during her time as a street dog was certainly humans.
Dealing with stray dogs and the fact that there are free-roaming stray dogs/packs is different in these countries.
Although she has been with us for over 2 years now and is treated extremely well and gently, she can't get her fear out completely. ...Show more →
Interesting but also sad story. She was lucky to find you! Hopefully she will get over her fear with time. Bless you for taking her in.
falconbach wrote:
Haha... she is still work in progress, still not as good as my old dog Venus was but Freyja is still very young. Only 2 years old in next April.
She is also more stubborn, I had it all the training planned out for her when I first brought her home. However, she throw me a curve-ball because she wasn't food or toy driven like at all! Hahaha... it is just now last 5-6 months which she has been getting more driven by food so the training is getting little bit easier haha...
She looks great in the studio!
And I know what you mean about training plans not panning out. The first has been a breeze since day one. Just super intelligent, motivated by praise, toys, and food, he's just easy. A lot of the play with him comes down to communication and cues from me, not just raw energy. The second one, he only wanted what the other had and he didn't care about food, toys, praise, anything. He was a real challenge until I figured out his main motivator was chasing/running. We made pretty quick progress after that
Do you folks have any favorite AF tips/settings for getting your pups in focus? Mine rarely stay still enough for my skills to catch up and I'd like to improve my keep rate. One article I saw (zfc|digitutor|nikon) recommended the touch shutter which I haven't tried yet.
dennishy wrote:
Do you folks have any favorite AF tips/settings for getting your pups in focus? Mine rarely stay still enough for my skills to catch up and I'd like to improve my keep rate. One article I saw (zfc|digitutor|nikon) recommended the touch shutter which I haven't tried yet.
With Z's, I mainly let subject detection do its thing. Auto-Area AF, AF-C, and subject detection on is the main setup, and that should serve well with just one dog in the frame.
If there's a particular action sequence that I want or there are multiple detectible subjects and I want to isolate one, then I set the camera to 3D tracking and I have my AF-ON button (AE-L/AF-L in the Zf's case) set to a smaller auto area mode. This way, I can have the camera look for the dog I want while AF-ON is pressed, let it lock on, and then I can let go of AF-ON and the camera will continue tracking anywhere in the frame. The camera won't get distracted by other subjects in frame as long as I'm half-pressing the shutter to continue 3D tracking.
The only area where the Zf has struggled is when the dog is running directly at the camera. The D5, D500, and Z8/Z9 are noticeably better in that specific use case. The Zf was never confused as far as tracking in the viewfinder goes, but the hit rate simply wasn't very good. In trying to figure that out, I found that the Zf drives my F-mount lenses slower than the DSLR's. And when the dog is closing in, lens speed does play a role. But outside of that, the Zf has been pretty solid.
This is the Zf and Z 70-200 f/2.8 S. I hoped a native Z lens would deliver better speed, but the hit rate didn't really change. I sold the Z lens to get a Z8, and that does a much better job with my 70-200 VRII. Again though, I'm just talking about the very specific use case of dog running directly at the camera at speed.
This is the kind of thing I want out of those sorts of specific sequences. The Zf could get the job done for sure, but the D5/D500 were simply more reliable. I'm happy for the Zf to live a slower life with mostly manual lenses now
OffTrail wrote:
With Z's, I mainly let subject detection do its thing. Auto-Area AF, AF-C, and subject detection on is the main setup, and that should serve well with just one dog in the frame.
If there's a particular action sequence that I want or there are multiple detectible subjects and I want to isolate one, then I set the camera to 3D tracking and I have my AF-ON button (AE-L/AF-L in the Zf's case) set to a smaller auto area mode. This way, I can have the camera look for the dog I want while AF-ON is pressed, let it lock on, and then I can let go of AF-ON and the camera will continue tracking anywhere in the frame. The camera won't get distracted by other subjects in frame as long as I'm half-pressing the shutter to continue 3D tracking.
The only area where the Zf has struggled is when the dog is running directly at the camera. The D5, D500, and Z8/Z9 are noticeably better in that specific use case. The Zf was never confused as far as tracking in the viewfinder goes, but the hit rate simply wasn't very good. In trying to figure that out, I found that the Zf drives my F-mount lenses slower than the DSLR's. And when the dog is closing in, lens speed does play a role. But outside of that, the Zf has been pretty solid.
This is the Zf and Z 70-200 f/2.8 S. I hoped a native Z lens would deliver better speed, but the hit rate didn't really change. I sold the Z lens to get a Z8, and that does a much better job with my 70-200 VRII. Again though, I'm just talking about the very specific use case of dog running directly at the camera at speed.
This is the kind of thing I want out of those sorts of specific sequences. The Zf could get the job done for sure, but the D5/D500 were simply more reliable. I'm happy for the Zf to live a slower life with mostly manual lenses now
I'll add to that as well that it seems like the animal AF is never quite as good as human for the Nikon cameras. The shape and size of dogs can vary so significantly, it is sometimes astounding that the higher end bodies can find an eyeball in a moving sea of fur.
There is definitely a different level of performance based on bodies/sensor/processor. From your link, I assume you are working with the Zfc. At this point, that is a 5 year old camera that really wasn't cutting edge when it came out. I find a stabilized lens helps some on the bodies without sensor stabilization.
BSPhotog wrote:
I'll add to that as well that it seems like the animal AF is never quite as good as human for the Nikon cameras. The shape and size of dogs can vary so significantly, it is sometimes astounding that the higher end bodies can find an eyeball in a moving sea of fur.
There is definitely a different level of performance based on bodies/sensor/processor. From your link, I assume you are working with the Zfc. At this point, that is a 5 year old camera that really wasn't cutting edge when it came out. I find a stabilized lens helps some on the bodies without sensor stabilization. ...Show more →
If you follow his image link, it says it was taken with a Zf.
But yeah, I agree, the way these cameras can discern what is and isn't an eye is really quite surprising sometimes.
Normally she doesn't go far away from us.
How old is he/she?
She was lucky to find you! Hopefully she will get over her fear with time. Bless you for taking her in. 
