Green Equestrian

[Photodawg1]

Okay...My first post in the Sports section and my first time shooting an equine event. Shot with the 70-200 f2.8...Aside being nervous by trying something new...absolutely loved it. I think I would like to do alot more of this. The arena wasn't the prettiest setting, with stands and high fence distraction so some of the jumps were truncated. Really asking for feedback and comments on these.

[Croasdail]

Like I know what I am talking about... but I will give it a try. On the first image, you are caught in cropping no-mans-land. The shoot either needs to be looser, possible in portrait orientation - or - tighter focusing on the rider. The shot itself isn't bad at all.

The second shot is a little harder. I plenty of these shots too.... and am just not sure what to to with them. Generally you want faces and expression. The horse truely gracefull, but the impact isn't there from this angle. I was told that the 3/4 angle shot is the ideal horse jumping shot. I tend to agree with it, though the last thing you want is a cookie cutter shot that looks just like everything else the same as the next joe's shots.

What surprised me with this sport was how hard it was to get clean backgrounds. With all the trailers, trucks, tents, porta-lets, you name it... there was plenty of junk to shoot around. Neither of these seem to suffer to badly from the issue really.... the metal bleachers in the second shot are a bit misfortunate, but you did ok for a first time out. I shot 180 riders all riding the same course..... it helps having 50 or 60 to warm up on.

[Photodawg1]

Mark,
You definitely know what you are talking about. I think the first would look better with a tighter rather than looser crop. I understand what you mean by the second. Another thing I noticed with my shots was most of them had their back feet planted, think I was afraid to miss the jump. I am reposting the first not cropped, and a second...does this one fit the thirds rule? Also, I was reading an article by a horse photog, and she said use a big lens to fill the frame. Problem is my 70-200 has the speed and sharpness, what about the 100-400? Have you tried that?
Thanks so much for responding, I really want to do well with this.67996

67997

[Photodawg1]

This jump is cleaner, with no background garbage. But it would have been better if I had gotten them coming toward me. Going back out today and will work on this.

[Photodawg1]

Last one from yesterdy...promise!

[fslshooter]

Photodawg1 -- I can only imagine how difficult shots like these must be to get -- big, fast moving, up close subjects with all sorts of background clutter but you've done great! On the last shot, I'd suggest you try a portrait mode (vertical) crop to see what that looks like. A touch of USM might give all of them more pop too.

[staereo]

I thought about fslshooter's comments, and i wanted to see how that would work. I hope you dont mind, but I ran your last picture through a quick 5 minute job.

I hit it with noise ninja, unsharp masked it with miranda's 20d sharpener, and removed some yellow and magenta from the picture. I finished with saturating it a little bit.

I also cropped out the right, because it offered a distraction from the rest of the image. You know, was different from the rest of the background.

I think it punches it out a little more, so I definately agree. Great shot. If you were to actually go and edit the picture, youd want to be selective about the riders face and features. I've also created a little bit of halo because I just wanted to test it out. Taking a few minutes to do it right could fix these probs in the edit of your picture.

Bruce

[Photodawg1]

Bruce...

Wow! Big improvement. I have seen Noise Ninja mentioned in some threads. I will definitely try it out. I have seen USM alot on here and was never really sure what it was,,, unsharpen? I often "sharpen". I go will back over some of them and play with CS2. I really appreciate the time you took to help make it a better shot. I went out today and got somemore shots, Some much better angles, but background seemed even more cluttered today. But will provide good material to practice the techniques you sugested.

Linda

[Photodawg1]

Photodawg1 -- I can only imagine how difficult shots like these must be to get -- big, fast moving, up close subjects with all sorts of background clutter but you've done great! On the last shot, I'd suggest you try a portrait mode (vertical) crop to see what that looks like. A touch of USM might give all of them more pop too.

Jerry, thank you so much for the comments. I went out there again today and I did do more portraits. I will try some Bruces techniques and see if these come out any better. Was there from 11-2 so the sun was kind of harsh. Hope you were photographing a good game . Thanks again.

[angelkat007]

I like these shots.. but being an equestrian myself... the second shot the rider looks like they're about to fall off the horse.. would be a lot better if they had proper positioning.

[Croasdail]

Just remember when you get into the world of editing, less is often better then more. Particularly with sharpening.... very small amounts - sometimes applied multiple of times. Avoid doing it to the point where you get artificial highlights around images (looks like white lines at the contracts areas). You will aslo see artifacts appear - that being things a odd halo around the subjects. Also where there is dirt, watch to make sure it doesn't become clumpy looking. On noise ninja, the same rules apply because it can really soften an image - which to correct the only course of action is to over sharpen. Keep it in your bag, but use it very selectively. With the camera you have you should only need to use it selectively when shooting at iso 1600, and carefully at iso 3200. With ISO 800 and below.... it shouldn't be needed ever.