I need Equestrian Horse shooting TIPs from you pros :)

WOW!! all i can say is you guys ROCK!!! this is WAY better than any school could teach me... now i just need a bigger brain to fit all this stuff into.. I have the bigger head part down but i think its mostly full of hot air :P Here is horse show i shot a LONGGG time ago when i first got my camera and my 24-105 4L lens and i think my 70-200 4L non IS ( which i sold both to pick up my 70-200 2.8L IS ) and i had ZERO clue about photography and about horses only a few pointers from what my step mother had told me. She said she LOVED the pictures and alot of her friends did too.. now i KNOW i can do a million times better today.. but check them out and let me know if there are any shots with the horses positions that work well or dont work well.

http://www.magnoliablu​es.com/jan21_2006/

Also When doing horse portraits.. what sort of lighting should i bring? should i bring out the big 5 foot octabox and my strobes? or will that spook the horse? Of course im not going to be able to use any sort of flash while im at competitions ill just use the 2.8 and ISO it till i get good exposures. But I have a feeling alot of people are going to want portraits with their horses and maybe some artistic type stuff to.. who knows..

Jacob, feel free to take a look at my website. I have a few combined training events there with dressage and jumping photos. A few tips:

1) if shooting with an Xti, the AF isn't good enough to use servo mode and track a horse over a jump. You will have a low hit rate as the camera usually gets confused when you track across the poles at the sides of the jump. I couldn't track well with a 20D, but the 1 series will work for this

2) Keep the sun behind you as much as possible and shoot from head on to about 45 degree angle to the jump. Kneel and get low for a more dramatic effect. You'll have to watch your metering though, as if there is a lot of sky in the shot, it will be underexposed.

3) In dressage, watch the riders "posting" at the trot. They post when the outside leg is forward. Nobody wants that shot. When the inside leg is forward and near the ground, the rider is in the seat. You want the head perpendicular to the ground (good "headset") and ears forward. If the horse doesn't cooperate, there isn't much you can do.

4) Lately, I've been hearing that you do better if you show and print on site and never post the images online. I get a lot of lookers, but not as many buyers as I'd like. Unfortunately, I don't have the income to get all the equipment and pay staff to do the on site thing yet.

Any other questions, feel free to email.

Aaron
www.eventstoremember.p​hotoreflect.com

My experience is that horses aren't too bothered by a flash . . . but because horses have a form of 360degree vision, you may get a lot of red-eye effect with them on a horse. . . . even from obscure angles . . .