Call me a paparazzo - I'm shooting royalty now.

[Curtis N]

The newly-crowned Boone County (IL) Fair Queen and her protégé, "Little Miss Boone County", paid a visit to the dairy show arena.

The sharpness is limited by narrow DOF and the fact that they moved forward a bit after I locked focus. Not too bad in a 4x6 print, though.

Canon 300D w/ 50mm f/1.4 lens
1/200 shutter, f/2, ISO 100
Straightened & cropped a little


http://boonecounty.info/curtsgallery/queens.jpg

[Curtis N]

236 views and no one has even said "The little girl is a cutie pie."?

Did my thread title rub people the wrong way?

[GyRob]

just seen it , looks ok but i would crop the people out in the background.
Rob

[2goldens]

This picture looks good to me. I would frame it just as it is.
Did you use a fill flash?

[jcost]

looks like a good natural capture of them both. I like it.

[eljustino]

Fill flash!!! Fill flash!!! Maybe with a warm-up filter on it (my new "thing", I recommend it!)

[LastLine]

Actually I've just been thinking what an interesting idea it is. To have Junior and Senior, if you will, in one competition.Can't decide if I like the crop or not, although if it's cropped for print I can fully understand why it';s like that.

[Curtis N]

i would crop the people out in the background.Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Gyrob, I agree the people in the background are distracting, but how do you crop them out without chopping off either the queen's head or the left half of her body? Maybe cloning them out would be a viable option. Think of it as a photojournalism type picture. What you see is what I got, and the background helps tell the story. Anyone is welcome to crop/clone and repost. I'm open to ideas.

Regarding fill flash - I was there as superintendant of a dairy show and just took the camera along to grab some quick shots of the champion cows and exhibitors. There were a bunch of cows just outside the frame of this shot. Flash can sometimes spook cattle, so I decided to go without. That's why I bought the f/1.4 lens.;)

Eljustino - Shooting RAW with digital pretty much makes warming & cooling filters unnecessary. I can adjust the white balance any way I like to create the same effect, but this setting looked the most natural to me.

Thanks again, everyone.

[KO_300D]

Great shot. Agree with the people in the background being a bit distracting but like you say it was a candid capture, not lined up and posed, so you got pretty good results!

[Curtis N]

Thanks, KO.

[garbidz]

The Royal Court in shorts...aren't they supposed to wear tights?

[GyRob]

Sorry i should have said clone out, just did it quick to show you.
Rob

[LastLine]

Hm, I think it actually appears better with the people in the background - gives something....I don't know...spontaneous, to it.