Travel Taken to a New Level
By KRae Merk | May 24, 2010
This video is a series of photos of 4-legged travel, from dogs ridding ATV’s, to pulling a wagon, to ridding a 4-wheeled mule, in the shotgun seat, and a few others.
Also, this weeks dog photography tip is on what I did to a few pictures in the video.
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Photo Friday – Truck Stop
By KRae Merk | May 21, 2010
This is a photo I snapped on the seat of my pants. (as usual)
I took two pictures with two different exposures, the first one was short to get the lovely sunset and the second one was half a second long. (hand held too)
What I did in Photoshop;
- Imported them into Photoshop as layers and highlighted both layers and auto aligned the layers by going into Edit-auto align layers and let Photoshop work its magic
- Then, I took the bottom layer, the short exposure, and turned it off and selected the top layer, the long exposure, and erased the sky completely out of it then turned the bottom layer back on and then aligned the two layers till they exactly matched
Now, I could have used HDR on this photo, but I don’t like the results of HDR most of the time and I had a few minutes to burn when I created this image so I took the time to erase and align the two photos together, rather than run it through HDR.
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A Great Camera Family = Great Dog Photography
By KRae Merk | May 19, 2010
As with almost anything, good equipment makes things run more smoothly. No exception with photography. Now, I’m a Nikon shooter. But it has been my experience that in the photography world, it depends solely on who you ask as to which brand is better; Nikon or Canon. I will say this, they both have strengths and weaknesses, they both are great cameras and they both have great lenses. So, I think it’s a matter of personal opinion. If you ask me, I would tell you I shoot with Nikon and I am very happy with Nikon and I don’t think I will ever change, that doesn’t mean I won’t, but it’s very unlikely.
Now, I will introduce you to my photography family, but first I will give you a little history on why I call it my family and why I name everything I own; first off, I come from nicknaming stock. On my dad’s side of the family they were all big nicknamers, if you didn’t have a nickname, you got one whether you wanted it or not. And that trait was passed on to me. Every stuffed animal I have has a name. (I only have, like, 30 of’em) I’d like to tell you all the nicknames Candy and Buford have but that is another post.
The first, and most loved, member of my photography family is my Nikon D300 camera body named Buddy, hence my YouTube name; D300Buddy
The second member of my family is my Nikon 18-200 VR lens named Bud;
The third member of my family is my Nikon SB-900 Speedlight named Buddy’s Buddy (I named him that because no one loves him but me and Buddy. He blinds everyone else)
The three new members of the family are Chico, Dud, & Tomas. Chico is a D5000 camera body, Dud is an 18-55 VR lens, Tomas is a 70-300 VR lens, and, aside from Bud, he is my favorite lens.
A dog photography tip for the photography family I introduced you to above, my favorite combination of camera & lens for dog photography is Buddy and Tomas, and for an all around, general purpose, do-most-jobs, camera combo for me is Buddy, Bud and Buddy’s Buddy. (I shot an entire wedding with this set up)
Now, I’ll introduce you to my camera bags and backpacks. They are all Lowepro, I’ve used several different brands but none have pleased me as much as Lowepro; they are tough, well built, versatile, well padded, the backpacks have great harnesses, all around good quality products.
My Rolling Computer Trekker AW Rolling Backpack, Big Daddy
My Dryzone Rover Hydration Waterproof Backpack, SEAL (named after the Navy SEALs)
My Nova 2 AW Shoulder Bag, Handy
I chose Big Daddy because he is a rolling backpack, a huge advantage for photographing dog shows and places where you do a lot of walking on relatively flat surfaces, and he can go on the plane plus he can carry a tripod. Big Daddy is what I call my “base camp” where all my equipment stays when I’m not using them. I use SEAL and Handy for “field trips” SEAL is used primarily for my back woods trips where I need more things other than camera equipment. SEAL is a new addition to my family and I will be doing a review on him later after I’ve put him through his paces. Handy is used for little trips and keeping the main camera equipment with me if I need to leave my hotel room or something.
A dog photography tip for the bags I introduced you to above for when I go to shows. I take Big Daddy to the show site and establish “Base Camp” then I take Handy out on “Field Trips” and I’m now using SEAL for weekend trips out into the backwoods, his camera compartment is big enough to take all my family members and spare batteries & memory cards, plus, the camera compartment is waterproof. SEAL also has what I call a “catch all” compartment above the waterproof camera compartment.
Now, I’ll introduce you to my tripods and monopod, I use Manfrotto for my tripods. I chose my tripod head for a few reasons, I’ve never been crazy about ball heads… in my opinion you have a lot more control over the three handled head than the ball head, but each to his own.
A dog photography tip on the tripods, I’ve never really used a tripod on a photo shoot, nor a monopod. They take up a lot of room plus it’s a little hard to maneuver around the agile dogs at a show when your camera is married to a pod. Sure, I get a few blurry photos but I just hold the shutter down and get a couple thousand pictures in one weekend and do a heap of deleting afterwards.
Now, for my desktop family,
My computer. He doesn’t have an official name that isn’t an expletive. When I’m happy with him, his name is My Computer. When I’m mad at him, he gets called a number of different things. But when I get mad at him I refer to the new saying about computers; Computers. You can’t live with them, but you can’t live without them.
For those wondering, I’m a Windows user. I’ve considered Mac, but you have so many more software and plugin options than on a Mac, but one thing for Mac I will say, they have awesome photography horse power. But if you know what you’re doing you can get a Windows to do all the things that a Mac can do. So again, like Nikon VS Canon, there are pros & cons.
Also on monitors, I love working on two monitors. I have what I call my working monitor and my presentation monitor, my presentation monitor over looks our living room and is in effect our TV. (although we don’t own a TV anymore nor do we have cable) I also love the HPw2408 monitor because it can adjust to all different angles and heights. When I work on a video movie for a client or something I’ll prop my feet on my desk, lower and tilt my monitor, put my keyboard on my knees, get a cup of coffee and some cookies, plug up with iTunes, and if Buford feels like it, put Buford in his box in my lap and I’ll work till my backside or legs go numb from sitting tilted back.
My Computer
My Working Monitor
My Presentation Monitor
Now, my printers.
My printers, Smoothie and Little P. Smoothie is an Epson Stylus Pro R1900, Smoothie is a fairly new member to my family and I did a review on him a little while ago. Little P is my Epson R280 that I’ve had for a few years, with Smoothie’s addition to the family, Little P will get a break of doing printing jobs that he wasn’t really meant to do.
Smoothie
Little P
A dog photography tip on printers, if you do any kind of mass printing, I’d highly recommend the R1900, but if you do just little one off’s every once in blue moon plus every day text printing, the R280 is more than capable.
Weeeeell, that’s bout’ it, I introduced you to all my family, and I hope you will benefit from my photography tips as much as I enjoy giving them!
P.S. A BIG tip for a Texan like me is keep a little fan suspended on your desk to keep the heat created by the computers down.
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Rollin Around Looks Dorky, But Feels Great
By KRae Merk | May 17, 2010
I decided to take a break from the day-to-day vigors and relax with Candy while she rolls around and looks dorky. But I have to admit, it does relax me while watching her being a dork. 
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Photo Friday – An Eye For An Eye
By KRae Merk | May 14, 2010
This is an image I made while I was board and had a new Photoshop User magazine at hand.
What I did;
- Import it into Photoshop
- Cropped the photo pretty much in half
- Used the lasso tool and encircled her eye with a 10px feather and enlarged the eye, and tilted it forward
- Using the lasso tool again, I selected the eyeball and copied it onto another layer and turned it off
- Then I pressed the Ctrl-L keys and brought up the levels dialog and darken the picture quite a bit
- Then pressed Ctrl-Shift-U to desaturate the photo and Ctrl – U and brought the Hue box up and clicked on the colorized the photo and enter 206 for hue, 58 for saturation, and 13 for lightness
- Then I used the burn tool, entered 30% for exposure and used a large soft edge brush and burned around her eye, eyebrow, and muzzle. Then I used the dodge tool and entered 30% for exposure and lightened around her nose, lips, the white markings on her muzzle, the white mark on her forehead, her tan eyebrow, and a little on her forehead.
- I lassoed her eyeball again and deleted it, then turned on the eyeball layer I earlier turned off and brought up the hue box again and colorized her eyeball and changed the sliders around till I got the desired the color. (not blue because the whole picture is blue)
- Then, pressing Ctrl-T I enlarged the eye pupil till it covered the entire eye socket and using the Burn tool again, I burned around the edges to make the eye look more natural.
- Then I created a new layer and widened it on the opposite side she is looking and made the layer black
- Then, I took the eraser tool and erased around the side on the new layer giving it a feathered look
- Then, I added text and gave the text a outer glow tinted blue
Voila! My wicked looking Candy.
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A Vital Dog Photography Tip; Don’t Laugh!
By KRae Merk | May 12, 2010
That is a very vital dog photography tip because dogs have feelings too! Since I live up to my nickname, “The Crazy Dog Photographer” I’ve come up with some pretty funny and crazy things; cats and dogs playing poker, a male cat wearing a dress, a cat riding in a sleigh being pulled by a toy horse down a ski slope, dogs wearing sunglasses on their butts, things like that. And during all those crazy things, I COULDN’T LAUGH! If I did I’d make the dogs feel really stupid just like a person.
I will admit during this photo shoot, I just about strangled myself to keep from laughing, because I can’t even show that I’m snickering! Because Candy is smart enough to pick up on that! Now I did laugh my head off afterwards, while I was looking at them on the computer.
And for those wondering, I taught Candy to wear sunglasses on her head when she was a little puppy, I’d like to explain just how I did train her, but it was a long drawn out process that is best explained in another post.
Oh, and I couldn’t resist such a perfect opportunity to get one of my favorite kind of shots; my reflection. (a dog photography tip; pics of your reflection usually get a lot of notice) Whether it’s in a mirror, in a pair of sunglasses, my shadow, I love pics of my reflection.
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Wolfe Doesn’t Like My Ringtones
By KRae Merk | May 10, 2010
Ever since I can remember, when I play my ringtones on my phone Wolfe starts howling along, its really funny when my brother gets a call and Wolfe starts howling and he keeps howling after he answers and the following conversation with the caller is quite funny. Wolfe even howls to my brothers alarm clock till he can drag himself out of bed to turn it off.
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Dog Photography Tips in the Morning Light
By KRae Merk | May 6, 2010
I’m sure this dog photography tip is in all the photography text books, but I’m going to say it again; aside from the evening light, the morning light is the best photography light, hands down.
I’ve read Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography book about a hundred times and I firmly believe in all his tips and tricks. But one I have used explicitly is his preaching about morning light, since I photograph dog and cats about 90% of the time, so I use morning light all the time to get the beautiful soft glow on the dogs coats and even, if I’m lucky, a outer glow on them which turn out most of the time the best photos in my collection.
Another morning light dog photography tip I love is the light shaft trick. I usually can find a morning light shaft filtering in through the trees or something, and try and get the dog into it. That part isn’t always easy. But the dogs stop in the light shaft of their own decision and all I have to do is hit the shutter button.
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Snow Days in Texas Part 5
By KRae Merk | May 3, 2010
This is the last video in my Snow Days in Texas series, I hope you liked them! But I will have a new picture video every Monday on what I’m now calling, Video Monday.
(Viewer Note; the last picture in this video of Candy laying on MY bed, using MY pillow, in MY room, that is what she does every night. She has her side of the bed, I have mine) (a dog photography tip on that picture, the only light in the room at the time was the lamp behind her and I didn’t feel like getting my flash out so I popped up the on-camera flash, dialed it all the way down and set the setting to rear lighting and snapped it)
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Review on the Epson R1900 Printer
By KRae Merk | April 29, 2010
Ok, I think I need to set the ground work on my experience with printers. For the last two years I’ve been using the Epson Stylus Pro R280, great little printer and very hardy, I’ve put that little printer through its paces since I do all my own prints, greeting cards, DVD labels and case inserts, plus everyday printing. It has held up wonderfully considering that I have been using it a little more than it was designed to do. Then my Aunt (a graphics designer) bought me the Epson Stylus Pro R1900 which I have been wanting for about a year now.
The first word out of my mouth when I printed some 4×6’s was, “WOW!” I’ve never had the luxury to use a printer bigger than my little R280 so for me, being able to use the R1900 is like driving a Honda Civic for years then suddenly getting a BMW 750Li.
Now for the review, software setup was a breeze. After printing a few test pages, I started printing a few photos for a few Mothers Day gifts and I was totally blown away by the printing quality. Then I started printing my greeting cards for Mothers Day, my brother’s birthday, and my parent’s anniversary. Again, totally blown away! (again, I’m transitioning from a Honda to a Beamer) I’m anxious to try out printing bigger prints than 4×6 on more high quality paper.
I’ve only had this printer a week now, but I am very impressed so far. But I’m looking forward to seeing how it holds up against what I call, “photographers abuse”, because my Aunt had the Epson R1800 and it didn’t hold up very well, she even replaced it during the years she had it and she isn’t near as hard on printers like I am.
Sorry, no dog photography tips this week, there will be another one next Thursday on morning light
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