Rally Day

I was up early and at the dog training arena a little before 8 am.  The competition started promptly at 8:30 and included about 20 different "rally" courses and about 20 dogs. Not all dogs competed in all trials.  Not surprisingly, I took about 2,000 images and have just finished my first purge, getting the number down to about 600.  I sort of randomly picked this shot because this woman is actually one of the vets we see at the practice time we take our pets to.  She is wonderfully compassionate and caring and I think this image captures a little of her personality.  And it doesn't hurt that her Rhodesian Ridgeback is a beautiful creature!  I am putting another picture in Extra because I just really like it - the dog is a mixed breed who is getting on in years and the absolute love between dog and owner is visible.

So, overall, I was not as happy with my images today as I'd hoped.  If I were going to do this sort of thing often, I would invest in an f2.8 lens because it would definitely perform better in arena lighting than the f4 lenses I was using.  I mostly used the z6iii because it is a little better at high ISO's than the z8, but I'm still not happy with having so much noise.  And then there was the fact that I was quite restricted in terms of where I could shoot from so it was impossible to get the jump shots and some of the other "primo" shots.  The only person allowed in the arena other than the dog owner/trainer is the judge - no exceptions.  And because it is "rally", there are signs on little stands all over the course - a huge pain in the ass to try to shoot around!  All of that being said, I did get some good shots and hopefully the owners will all be happy with my final picks.  There were two solid black dogs (a giant Schnauzer and a Belgian Shepard) who gave me absolute fits - fortunately, most of the other dogs were of colors that held up better to the noise.  And there was one really adorable Beagle puppy, shown by a very young girl, who was just super photogenic.  

I got home around 2 and, other than taking Jax for a quick walk, have done nothing but edit photos.  I think I'm done for the day - I will do the second purge tomorrow.

All in all, a very fun day!  I am really enjoying my forays into dog sport photography!

xo
Debbi