First horse show

[Don Fleck]

Picture of my girlfriend goofing around.



Picture of a girl that wooped up in barrels.



Girlfriends little sister competing





Getting some reassurance from the trainer




Another Horse Dakota.


This was my first try and none of these have been touched. C&C welcome.

[Douglas]

Very nice! Im sure someone with more experience could help you further. Only thing I would say is getting a longer lens for those action shots.

[Don Fleck]

I had more lens but it changed my fstop, I can tighten the crop up on them.

[Steven G Webb]

Looks like you had a pretty good outing. I'll give you my short-take on each.

1. Your subject isn't taking much of the frame. Get closer, or zoom in. Don't be afraid to turn the camera up on its side to get a vertically oriented shot.

2. I think I told you earlier about those white barns (and fences) which tend to fake out the meter. Your subject is in the shade of the barn and the background is many times brighter. Spot metering on the subject would help with her exposure and you'd have the blown out background elements. A flash would have helped even the exposure levels a bit. Even the pop-up flash on a camera would have provided just enough punch to get a good exposure on her and lessen the range of dark-to-light. Also, make a little noise like a whistle or call the horse by name to perk up the ears.

3. That's good timing on a barrel shot. That's what you want to see, the further leg crossing over the nearer. It is cropped loose as previously addressed. At this time of day I don't see the loss of an f-stop being enough leverage for cropping quite this loose. No matter how good the resolution or how sharp the focus, an extreme crop in editing is probably degrade the image more than the change in aperture if zoomed with the lens.

4. Technically its the wrong side of the barrel. You want to see how nearly the horse is to the barrel. The timing here is not as good. With the legs arranged like this, the horse appears to be falling over.

5. Again, the horse appears to be falling over.

[Side note: Barrels are conventionally shot inside the ring. Facing the #3 barrel the photographer would stand to the left of the #2 barrel and photograph the horse as it came around and was facing the photographer. This way the photographer can see the distance between the horse and barrel, and the stride and reach of the front legs. Also, the #2 barrel is the least likely to be over-shot by the rider]

6. Nice timing on the trot shot. Again, the image would have been stronger taken nearer. I understand your limitation on vantage points. You also see the background issue we discussed earlier.

7. Probably the best trot shot of the bunch. Although getting the bit of angle would have made this a stronger image.

8. Not the normal stride. Usually the rail side legs should be coming together. The timing on this one, even with the opposite legs, is a smidgen late. Note that the back foot has already rolled and the front knee has bent preparing to bring the leg forward.

9. I'm guessing the horse was at the trot? The timing isn't there. I looks like a missed trot shot as the arrangement of the legs don't look like he's walking. Maybe this was during a transition.

10. Good interaction candid pictures are important to round out the experience. We never get to choose the time of day or the location where these interactions will take place. With what you had to work with, I think this one is passable. Coulda, woulda, shoulda's run rampant after the fact so no knocks on this one. Its what it is, where it is when it is. Sometimes that's about the best we can do.

11. Would have been a nice trail shot, had we been able to see the hooves and what the horse was doing. Both the rider and the horse seem to be concentrating on the same thing, that's nice but no way to know what it is or if the horse is negotiating it well.

12. Pretty nice. Don't know if the horse was backing into the box or coming out if it. Still you have some leg action. If the horse was to make a 360 inside the box, it would be nice to see the crossed legs as it was spinning. The trail obstacles are meant to demonstrate the control and precision of the horse and rider. Points in an obstacle like this one are deducted for touching the rails, so seeing the horse in motion and carefully staying in the boundaries is a good thing.

13. Don't be afraid to turn the camera up and frame these into a vertical orientation. Generally we don't crop the ears or chin off a horse's face shot. Too, when the main is pulled to one side, we like to shoot the "pretty" side. The contour of a horses face is such we have to watch for shadows. Light from ahead and above will help lessen them. Also, highly important to horse owners that the ears be perked. Horses show emotion with their ears. Forward facing perked ears indicate alertness and a smile. Pinned ears indicate impatience boredom aggravation or fatigue.

You had a really nice day at the horse show and you did well with several things that take most of us years of individual concentration to get right consistently.

By the by, what venue were these taken? It looks familiar.

Steve

[Don Fleck]

Originally Posted by Songman45

Looks like you had a pretty good outing. I'll give you my short-take on each.

1. Your subject isn't taking much of the frame. Get closer, or zoom in. Don't be afraid to turn the camera up on its side to get a vertically oriented shot.

I will zoom in more on all my shots. Was not really paying attention to that, was looking for a lot of other things, this was just a random shot.

2. I think I told you earlier about those white barns (and fences) which tend to fake out the meter. Your subject is in the shade of the barn and the background is many times brighter. Spot metering on the subject would help with her exposure and you'd have the blown out background elements. A flash would have helped even the exposure levels a bit. Even the pop-up flash on a camera would have provided just enough punch to get a good exposure on her and lessen the range of dark-to-light. Also, make a little noise like a whistle or call the horse by name to perk up the ears.

I can lighten this up in Lightroom, and will keep the whistle in mind for future reference.

3. That's good timing on a barrel shot. That's what you want to see, the further leg crossing over the nearer. It is cropped loose as previously addressed. At this time of day I don't see the loss of an f-stop being enough leverage for cropping quite this loose. No matter how good the resolution or how sharp the focus, an extreme crop in editing is probably degrade the image more than the change in aperture if zoomed with the lens.

Again, I will zoom more next time.

4. Technically its the wrong side of the barrel. You want to see how nearly the horse is to the barrel. The timing here is not as good. With the legs arranged like this, the horse appears to be falling over.

I was limited on my shooting location, and they were going in on the top of the barrel.

6. Nice timing on the trot shot. Again, the image would have been stronger taken nearer. I understand your limitation on vantage points. You also see the background issue we discussed earlier.

Thank You

7. Probably the best trot shot of the bunch. Although getting the bit of angle would have made this a stronger image.

Thought this was the best also

8. Not the normal stride. Usually the rail side legs should be coming together. The timing on this one, even with the opposite legs, is a smidgen late. Note that the back foot has already rolled and the front knee has bent preparing to bring the leg forward.

Timing was definitely off.

9. I'm guessing the horse was at the trot? The timing isn't there. I looks like a missed trot shot as the arrangement of the legs don't look like he's walking. Maybe this was during a transition.

Horse was on the way to center ring, Don't really know how that got in there.

10. Good interaction candid pictures are important to round out the experience. We never get to choose the time of day or the location where these interactions will take place. With what you had to work with, I think this one is passable. Coulda, woulda, shoulda's run rampant after the fact so no knocks on this one. Its what it is, where it is when it is. Sometimes that's about the best we can do.

This was shot on a whim, can probably touch it up.

11. Would have been a nice trail shot, had we been able to see the hooves and what the horse was doing. Both the rider and the horse seem to be concentrating on the same thing, that's nice but no way to know what it is or if the horse is negotiating it well.

I think the trail was all over at this point.

13. Don't be afraid to turn the camera up and frame these into a vertical orientation. Generally we don't crop the ears or chin off a horse's face shot. Too, when the main is pulled to one side, we like to shoot the "pretty" side. The contour of a horses face is such we have to watch for shadows. Light from ahead and above will help lessen them. Also, highly important to horse owners that the ears be perked. Horses show emotion with their ears. Forward facing perked ears indicate alertness and a smile. Pinned ears indicate impatience boredom aggravation or fatigue.

I have a better cropped picture of this, thought i put that one up.

By the by, what venue were these taken? It looks familiar.

Steve

These were taken in Harford County, MD at the equestrian center.




Thanks for all of your input, I will hopefully have better pictures to report with next time.