Cody-Appendix Gelding C&C

Although the exposure on the horse looks good, the backgrounds seem blown. Also, I detect a strong blue tint. This can be seen in not only the grass, but on the horses hoofs (such as in #2).

The first shots are all excellent of the horse but the backgrounds are out of control. In the last picture, the background is very good, but the horse does not look as good as in the other shots.

Difficult to get it all right in one shot, isn't it?

I think these look pretty good, the exposure for the horse seems spot on. I wouldn't worry about blowing the background, anyone looking at this photo not specifically to critique it would only be looking at the horse and would ignore the background. If you did however want to have a bit of sky then you'd need to underexpose a bit then in raw conversion (on PS CS3 at least) pull the fill light slider up a bit to brighten the horse without effecting the highlights.

Nice shots though

Robert_Lay wrote in post #6597752
Difficult to get it all right in one shot, isn't it?

Yes, indeed.

Being a horse fan, I definitely looked at the horse and not the BG....love the movement and character you got.

Flo wrote in post #6598061
Being a horse fan, I definitely looked at the horse and not the BG....love the movement and character you got.

Thankyou.I ordered a 13x19 print of #1 for the owners of Cody and they loved it.

Did you take these in portrait mode, or simply crop them this way.sometimes with an animal this large, getting a landscape in the mix might leave you room for some less crowded cropping?

Flo wrote in post #6598433
Did you take these in portrait mode, or simply crop them this way.sometimes with an animal this large, getting a landscape in the mix might leave you room for some less crowded cropping?

No, these were all shot in portrait. I visualized the picture in my head and that is how I shot it.

J D Skate wrote in post #6598761
No, these were all shot in portrait. I visualized the picture in my head and that is how I shot it.

Try mixing it up. Horses take up alot of room.and their surroundings often compliment them.

CannedHeat wrote in post #6597373
Although the exposure on the horse looks good, the backgrounds seem blown. Also, I detect a strong blue tint. This can be seen in not only the grass, but on the horses hoofs (such as in #2).

Well DUH!! He is probably from Kentucky!!.
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Ya know sometimes I should stay away from the keyboard... sorry.

I really like the way his musculature looks and the expressions on his face too.
Ditto on the BG, it is not easy to get both sometimes

Tough shots, are you able to recover the background at all with PP? I think you exposed the horse very well in the first two shots.

Broncobear wrote in post #6599555
are you able to recover the background at all with PP? .

I've tried to without sucess, although I still am not very good at PP.

I like the light on the horse & don't care that much about the background either, except for the freakin' leaning tree? Cut that sucker down or find a better background like you have in #3, hopefully without that leaning tree.

The head, ears, & hooves are not easy to get in sync. Shoot lots & delete liberally.

I have to agree with the comments about the background being to bright in the first two shots there. To me it makes the horse look under-exposed (although I'm fairly sure it isn't). If it were me and -if- this were shot in RAW, I might re-process those two shots and try playing with the recovery sliders a bit. A better way though might be to go into a program like Photoshop, seperate the horse into it's own separate layer and then bring down the background. I also have to agree with CannedHeat in that there is a strong blue cast to these shots...I'd just use the Saturation tool in Photoshop to take the blues down a bit. I do think they're nice shots and would be worth the extra effort.

The last shot is my favorite and I think it's the best of the three. Not only is the lighting more even, but it conveys a wonderful sense of movement as well. That blue tint is there again so I'd fix that but I would also clone out the wires from the fence as well. I especially find the wires coming out of his tail and his butt in that shot to be a bit distracting.

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim