Made it back to the showjumping which thankfully had some better lighting this time! Though the backgrounds are still a nightmare. Sadly if I want to shoot low with horses coming at me its nearly impossible to get a good angle without a distracting background (might try getting out into the ring next time - there is a chance that might work - but depends on the positions on offer). The balcony still offers the better angles for potentially less distractions; but at the same time its an above angle shot I'm not really after.
That aside things went better; I suspect the light helping the AF along as well. Got more well timed shots; still not 100% on the mark for the "moment" but getting a lot more sharper shots in-focus than before.
Cropping and composition is still a pain, I feel like I'm cropping too much, yet when shooting I feel like I've really not got the room to spare in the frame, coupled with the AF points being nearer the middle of the viewfinder. I also find because a horse is so long if I try to use an AF point so that the head of the horse is "over" the middle and advancing into the corner the shot feels wrong; whilst if I compose with the horses head closer to the middle AF point (up one though not dead centre) then it leaves me more moving room but less horse.
So technically doing ok - compositionally and background wise need improvement (though I accept that backgrounds are a pain here indoors to some extent).
Any comments/crits/advice always welcome.
All taken on a Canon 7D and Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS L MII
f2.8, 1/640sec, various ISOs (between 1600 and 6400)
Note part way through I changed the sensitivity of the resampling on the AF to a higher level of sensitivity. My thinking is if the horse is coming right at me I need the camera resampling and detecting every single change to keep up. I've not really focused on checking if I got improved results (and honestly it wouldn't be a very scientific test); but to my thinking it should help
I also experimented with auto ISO (since my aperture and shutter speed are pretty well fixed) that said it didn't really work out for me, I honestly want the ability to have exposure compensation in manual mode for the first time so that I could have the camera get the exposure I want (about the only time I don't want a little "over" what the meter says is when its a white furred horse running - in fact I tend to jump up to f3.2 for white furred horses just to take the edge off the exposure and stop their fur blowing out)
