Flyball is one of many dog sports that involve the dog running down a lane and jumping over low walls, grabbing a ball and heading back to the handler. As part of my attempts to sketch a few specific dog breeds in real life (Huskies, Border Collies, Samoyed), I went down over to the Winbledon Village Fair as I was told about a fly ball demonstration, and border collies could be found there.
Used a twin lens package this day; 16-85 for general shots, and I did bother to bring down the 70-200 in case the shoot gets challenging. Indeed, it did get challenging, sort of. Whilst birds in flight the challenge is to lock AF onto a moving bird, with the dogs jumping, it's more about when to trip the shutter.
I tried just machine gunning some shots - held down the release just as the dogs were about to jump through the focus point - as well as just tripping the shutter once they are almost at the focus point. The 2nd option seems to work _slightly_ better. I did stop down from 5.6 to F8 in order to gain more DOF though - at such distances and focal lengths, the dof is almost non existant.
Side on shots weren't much of a trouble, more about getting a shot without something sticking in front of the frame. Could do with a better background but oh well ;-)
Wish I had the time and patience for a pet. I guess my wolf plush will do for now ;-)
GW
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