Cross Country Jumping

My girlfriend took one of her horse's cross country schooling today, so it was a chance to get some different shots to what i normally get when she's indoor showjumping..... It was his first time doing cross country and to make life tougher for him the weather was awful and as a result the ground was more like a swamp! anyway, i'd appreciate any C&C...... all pics were with the 85mm f/1.8...... thanks for looking.

1. 1/500 @ f/2.8 iso 400

HTTP response: 503 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 503 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 503 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 503 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 503 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 503 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

steve75 wrote in post #2691242
i'd appreciate any C&C......

Anybody........???

i'm all too willing to learn, so don't go holding back with any critisism..... At the end of the day, if nobody likes them i'd like to hear why so i don't make the same mistakes in the future.......

Dont like backs..... horse, rider, footballer, tennis, cricket or any sport... theres the odd arty shot thats good but generally if the sportsperson is going away from you and most of the shot is the back then not good... quite a few of yours are going away...

Otherwise they look great to me.. More going through water would be good.. BUT I dont shoot this type of thing so I may be talking out of my back end

Well, talking out your back end or not.... i appreciate your comments! Thanks for looking and i will try to keep it in mind in the future, i enjoyed looking through your gallery by the way..... i might try my hand at a few different sports when i get the time to experiment.

Cheers

I think these shots are great!! the exposure and focus are dead on and look great. As mentioned above shooting more from the front would improve, which of course means to work on your composition.

I would like to see more next time - you may want to see if you can move to f/1.8 and add some bokeh to the shots - certainly this will ad more challenge next time

This is one of my favourite sports to shoot, the first 2 are about the best, some of the best shots are head on with the riders head between the horse ears, a bit like this one http://gsgary.smugmug.​com/photos/94319692-M.jpg
this one is probably one of my favourite shots from last year http://gsgary.smugmug.​com/photos/94319710-M.jpg
There's more here if you want to look http://gsgary.smugmug.​com/gallery/1874429/1/​94319710
http://gsgary.smugmug.​com/gallery/1458095/1/​69528623

Personally I'm not so keen on the front-on shots. My preference is for a bit of angle otherwise the horse can look kind of weird and narrow. Hey... why the long face? LOL. Sorry, coudn't resist. Anyhow I reckon you've done really well here. Horses are all about angles and timing - good effort.