Horse Jumping
Hi to Divamum and Hoofclix (Mark) It is exactly two years since I posted my first horse jumping photos when I attended our local agricultural show at Dumfries in South west Scotland. I was unable to attend last year because I was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had to go along with major surgery. However, I attended this years show which was held on the 5th inst and I have attached a few photos. I remember the advice Divamum and Hoofclix (Mark) gave me about the front legs being tucked in and etc etc and I am now open to all the comments from everyone to take me to the next stage.
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Comments
In general I would delete the shots where the horse is coming down or landing. I personally like the shots where the the horse is launching and you can see the power as well as the connection between horse and rider.
I am sure the real horse people will add more meaning full feed back.
Sam
Thanks for your reply. I wa mainly using 7D with 70- 200 F.4 and also a 40D with 24 - 105. I was in TV mode with a shutter speed varying between 1250 and 1600 and ISO at 400.
Cheers
Bob
Thanks for looking and replying Sam. I did take the majority of the shots with the horse on take off with their rear hooves just leaving the ground.
Cheers
Bob
I prefer Av mode while shooting my equestrian work. I see some of your shots have an aperture as small as F9. Unlesss the ring is very large I use a 70 200 2.8 set in Av at 2.8 or 3.5, keeping an eye on my shutter speed and adjusting ISO as needed. I don't use manual becouse I'm moving to catch multiple jumps for each rider and the light is changing too much. I get a pattern going that alows me to 5 -7 jumps for each rider. The larger aperture will give you more seperation from your background.
Thanks for that reply. The next time I will use my 70-200 at ots lowest stop of F.4. What shutter speed would you recommend? I was keeping it between 1250 and 1600.
Cheers
Bob
Thanks ever so much for your comments and advice which I truly appreciate.
Cheers
Bob
I really enjoyed you photos. I've never shot this event before, but would very much like to. There is training facility a mile or so from my home that I would love to make contact with and get permission to shoot some lessons and practice.
Some of your shots appear a bit noisy or grainy maybe. For most events I wouldn't like the look, but for this it sort of give the shots an old world kind of look. On my IMac monitor they sort of look like an oil painting.
Good luck with your continued recovery.
MikeV-
http://www.vitaminv.smugmug.com
Cheers
Bob
I suggest you test that and view the images on your computer before you commit to it.
I have the exact same setup as you and found when the fences were more than a 45o angle to me the camera would focus on the horses nose and the back end and even sometimes the rider was noticably out of focus.
Myself, where I can I try to get the horses not completely side on. I don't know whats supposed to be right or wrong, it's just a look I like.
When I shoot SJ or equitation, I try to pick a spot where I can get as many gates in decent shots as possible. Sometimes the course designers set them up so your lucky to get 2 other times you can get 8 good angles out of a 12 fence course.
One shot thats proven popular is to put a camera down low as you can with a wide angle lens just behind and to the side of a gate. I fire this one off by remote control. I call them the " Flying Horse" shots because they make even the 50 Cm jumps look huge and of course the riders in those classes love them for making their jumps look so much higher and more dramatic.
With the backgrounds, its a rare exception to get a decent one thats not full of crap. Irritates me every show I shoot but thats a factor well beyong my control so nothing I can do about it. DOF helps so much but the riders far rather have the backgrounds a bit sharp ( and in my experience never notice them anyway) than them be out of focus which they certainly notice.
Do what you can and don't sweat the rest.
In dressage it's the opposite. They don't want to see the background at all. As you know, the place where I shoot is indoors, crappy lighting and lousy backgrounds - so I try to blur as much as possible. To get nice shots, I hang out outside by the warmup ring. There are trees and bushes along one side so if I'm LUCKY I can get some shots there.
Inevitably, though, the best ones always end up being the ones shot facing the g.d. parking lot with horse trailers, trucks and cars and the muck wagon in the background. The riders always ask me to edit out the background if that happens. A royal PITA.
On the other hand, when shooting dogs, you get nice and low and it's SO much easier in terms of backgrounds. Sigh.
Can you tell I'm at a dressage show this week-end? Up at 4:30 in the a.m. getting ready to go so I can get my dog out for a walk before it gets stinking hot?
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
Thanks ever so much for your reply. on Saturday I attended another local agricultural show and took a number of photos some of which I will post shortly. I used my 7D and 70-200 F.4. This time I used AV mode at its lowest stop F.4 hoping to blur the background but I was obviously too far away. What I did notice my shutter speeds were varying from 800 to as high as 1/2,500 and at one point it shot right up to 1/4000. I was using an ISO of 400.
When I used the TV mode I found that I could regulate the shutter speed ok but found that the apperture varied between F.4 and F.11 resulting in a clear depth of field.
It is not always possible to get in the position one would like to be in but I was able to shoot three fences out of 12 and was lucky as there was not a lot of clutter in the background. As I said I will post a few shots shortly.
Cheers
Bob
Thanks Snowgirl, I can remember a couple of years ago you mentioned that you covered dressage. No doubt you will be using a 2.8 70-200 if you are shooting a lot inside. I don't do any inside shooting but if I did I am sure my F.4 would be no good even with a high ISO. I hope you had an enjoyable time at the weekend and I look forward to you posting some of your work soon.
Cheers
Bob
Here are a sample of photos I took on Saturday at a local agricultural show.. Any comments will be more than appreciated.
Cheers
Bob
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Had a look at your latest shots. A couple of things came to mind:
1. several of them seem quite 'grainy' - especially the very last one. What ISO were you using?
2. if you are able to position yourself a little bit more forward of the jump (about 45 degrees vs straight on at 90) you don't get as much of the rider's "bum in the air" look - and it's a little more flattering to those whom nature endowed with a broader beam, if you catch my drift
The first shot in your Aug. 7th post is exactly right.
Outdoors your f/4 200mm lens should be plenty outdoors. I know that it's hard to blur the background but it's much more important that the subject (horse/rider) be in focus. When I first started out, I used the 70-200mmf/2.8 at max aperture to blur background and didn't realize just how shallow the plane of focus would be - mere inches. So, if the rider's toe was in focus, the horse was not.
Now I shoot at f/5.6 or above and with a fairly fast shutter speed (depending on the sport - 1/250 or greater for dressage, 1/1000 for jumping) to freeze the motion. One of my favourite dressage shots is the moment of suspension in the canter stride when all 4 feet are off the ground - and that needs a fast shutter speed. My 2nd favourite shot is the canter departure when the horse has rocked back and is thrusting forward showing its power and muscling.
http://imagesbyceci.smugmug.com/Horses/Dressage/Dressage-NB-July-23-24-2011/i-r8vknTC/1/M/DL2H4752-Version-2-M.jpg
Again, you need a fast shutter speed to grab that moment.
Hope this helps.
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
Hi Snowgirl great to hear from you again and hopefully I have beaten the Big C and have three monthly checkups.
Mmm I have been told a number of times that my photos tend to be somewhat grainy. The last photo was taken F.4 1/1000 shutter speed and the ISO was 250.
I certainly see what you mean between the 1st photo and the photo number 4 in the second lot. I never gave it a thought but I am sure the rider would notice it. I will remember that one.
Thanks once again for all your kind help.
Cheers
Bob
Glad to hear all is good for you.
I have no idea why your photos appear grainy. At those settings they shouldn't be. That's not an exceptionally high ISO. Maybe you should have someone service your camera? Check the sensor?
All the best,
Ceci
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
I have looked this post several times now. To me it looks like the images have had some less than optimal processing. Like excessive shadow highlight tool, and maybe excessive sharpening. Have you bumped the exposure in processing?
Are you shooting in RAW? What is your normal adjustments? Do you have a RAW file that could be accessed?
Sam
Thanks for looking and commenting. Yes I do shoot raw and the processing I normally do is Levels and followed by High Pass sharpening. Here is an image which I have not touched. It was taken AV mode at F.4 1/1000 and ISO at 250. The majority of the shots were taken with these settings.
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that said, you seem to be hitting the mark with getting the peak action which is what the riders want to see.
The shots look grainy to me as well and given these are little internet size shots, there must be something in the processing going astray to make it visable at these sizes.
These last ones threw me as to where they were taken.
The building and the tractor in the BG are exactly like what is at a place here I shoot at. the porta loo and the bit of the numberplate on the cars look exactly like ours as well so I was thinking you must be a local and had to check again!
I have an ODE this weekend if the rain holds off which is one of my favourites. Even the kids get serious about the sporting classes and I always get great shots on the barrels and timed events.
The dressage is like watching grass grow to me ( sorry Snow) same as the hacking so the Mrs can cover those ( I can hear the protests now) and I'll do the sporting and jumping where you can get into the action.
Bout time I did another promo slide show as well.
Thanks Glort for looking and commenting. I really must do something about this grainy problem. I was wondering if I am doing something wrong in my processing. I shoot Raw and use CS4. I usually use the recovery tool in ACR and in photoshop use levels and then finish off with High Pass sharpening.
If anyone can point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it.
The photos were taken at Dalston agricultural show in Cumbria, England if this is of any help to you.
Cheers
Bob
Could it be that I am making the mistake in processing in Photoshop CS4? I have just purchased Noiseware. I did use Noiseware Community Edition but have just found out that this strops the Exifs.
Cheers
Bob
I doubt it is the software as much as the technique.
Can't offer any advise as i don't process any image of this type myself and very little of anything else either.
We shoot .jpg and the only processing we do is in the printing software which is limited to cropping, maybe a bit of levels and that's about it. To the printer or burner and out the door.
I shot everything on the weekend at 400 iso and my images are completely and utterly grain free even up to 20x30 that i pulled one up to and printed an 8x12 section of with this discussion in mind.
Of course there are the hoards of quality zealots that I doubt have ever actually sold an event pic that will carry on about having to process each every image to perfection and god forbid you let an un photostuffed image out the door lest it ruin your reputation forever and people will be agahast in horror when the see horrors you have allowed but in the real world, it dosen't work like that.
I set up my camera withthe contrast, sharpening etc settings i want so the images are the way I want them without having to fiddle all the time. At teh ODE I did last sunday, my son and I were both in the trailer printing and burning and had no less than 8 orders sitting on the bench at any given time and we don't work slow either. There simply isn't the time to be mucking round editing and fixing pics and no need either.
The Clients are rapped with what we give them and we have yet to have a complaint about our image quality yet. If you shoot it right in the first place like shooters used to pride themselves on doing not all that long ago, then what is there to fiddle with other than a crop, levels and maybe, some minor sharpening?
I would say if your processing of images is giving you grief, don't do it. Go to . Jpgs ( that ought to upset the Computer editing lovers!) set your camera up to give the result you want in the first place and off you go.
Last friday I booked an interschools event for the end of next month with 200 riders. Yesterday I booked a corporate Function for this friday night with 300+ guests. We don't have time to be mucking around fiddling images for that amount of clients especially with the Corporate gig as the client has prepaid for 300 images to be printed and given to the clients. They are all going to be shot on greenscreen and have an overlay of the companys logo and message. Start to finish the gig is 4 hours. The plan is to shoot, wireless the keepers as we take them to the computer in a monmitored hot folder, have the greenscreen software do it's thing, put them in a folder where my trailer jockey will pick them up, check the GS processing, hit a function key which will have an action in PS programmed to add the overlay and spit the thing out one of the printers.
I'll be happy to pull that off let alone have to contend with RAW files as well!
My long winded point is I believe you may like to consider your need to process these images at all and have a look at other options which allow you to get the result you want and speed up your turnaround. I get the impression you are not doing onsite and therefore have more time but I very much believe the writing is on the wall for event work where onsite viewing is going to be almost mandatory very soon and is certainly the key to expanding anyones business that is not doing it currently.
Aside from that, why spend more time on a job than you need to?
Processing images on the computer bores me senseless.
Going back to the point of focus, I tried the F4 again on the weekend thinking of this thread and although I had set myself up well within the focus range of where the horses would be, the bokeh was minimal. I did however manage to maintain the sharpness all the way through this time however, probably because most of my angles were a bit more side on. Pulling up to F11 seemed to make little difference to BG focus.
One thing was good was I was able to get some angles in this fairly remote location that were just bush with rolling hills in the BG which made a pleasant change from the usual clutter. Even better was that the best part of the course, the water jump, had the best BG of the place.
The expressions on most of the kids faces were priceless given it's still well into winter here and the event was at the foot of the mountains!
Thanks ever so much Glort for your very interesting reply. I think you could be right in what you say as you would never have the time to process the number of images you are turning out.
In actual fact I mainly do car rallies and all the people who stand taking photos next to me shoot in Jpgs. They cannot understand why I shoot in Raw. The reason I shoot in Raw is because so many people on Dgrin say this is the best way to shoot and especially when it comes to processing.The next time I will change to Jpgs and give it a go. I will also recheck my camera settings too.
Hopefully the next batch of images are not so grainy.
Thanks once again for your kind help which I truly appreciate.
Cheers
Bob
Glad my rant may be of some help.
The thing I find with ( all) forums and the opinions expressed theirin is that many people are short on experience and big on parroting what they have read and taking it as gospel even though they got it from the guy that was merely parroting what the guy before him said.
Also there are many in this game that want to establish themselves as knowledgeable to offset the lack of real world working experience.
I find this in just about every regard of photography such as equipment, printing, how a person should behave on the job etc.
It is also apparent that many people put ideals before meeting the clients needs ( if indeed they have any paying clients) and making a profit. I think the working shooters on most forums tend to be a minority and as such, ideals tend to get a lot more airplay than practical experience.
I have been lucky enough to have the worlds most successful event shooter take me under his wing somewhat and share his valueable time and experience with me. I have yet to find a single thing he has advised me to not be perfectly on the ball, even though at times I had great doubts myself when he first told me.
I don't think he is on this forum but on another one he participates regularly on, I never cease to be amazed at how the johhny come latelys doing piddling little events they either cover for nothing or make nothing from want to get on their quality high horse and lecture him about all the things he's doing wrong. Having been priveledged enough to be told what few others are, I know this guy makes more PROFIT on one of the huge events he does than 90% of these loudmouths make in a year.
Still, that dosen't stop them arguing with him and telling him what he's doing wrong.
It's so ironic it's completely laughable.
In another interest I have I am regarded as one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the subject.... Now.
At first when I questioned the established practices and beliefs, I was ridiculed continualy and savegely on occasion because of my non conformity. I basicaly did the tests and took the risks everyone else was scared to do and when I repeatedly showed why and how the accepted perceptions were incorrect and slowly others tried them for themselves and found the same thing, i went from Nutter to all knowing.
I laugh now when i see people parroting what i have changed the accepted practice to be even though they have absoloutley no idea what the hell they are talking about or the reasons behind or against the practices or technologys they are talking about. It's even funnier when you see they info you put forward being espoused by those whom 5 years ago called you for all the mongerals under the sun and even banned you from forums for spreading " Potentially damaging information"!
I keep to myself these days. if people are too lazy to find out things for themselves, that's their bad luck. i'm through arguing for the benifit of the ignorant.
I say to people not to take what the last guy said as gospel, try differnt things and see how they work for your own personal circumstance's, clients, jobs, resources at your disposal etc. and find what is best for YOU, not the guy on the other side of the world ( Oh, wait a minute...
Like in this case, I'm not anti RAW as such, I shoot weddings and portraits and even glamour work in that format but it's horses ( convinent pun intended!) for courses.
I tell people with my event work I sell speed more over than photos. If I can't get the pics in front of the people fast, then everything else is for nought.
Now maybe if I shot raw and I assed about with every pic individually I could get a better result but i'd have no sales. What I do now MORE than exceedes the customers expectations and the fact people can see their pics on the day and take them home along with teh quality I do produce has basicaly made me the biggest at what I do in my tiny little fish tank called Oz.
Anyway, all you have to do is satisfy the client, not some nitpicking bunch of wanna be forum pedantics. One group pay you money, the other don't. Always follow the money.
Take the suggestions on board, think them through and try the ones you think have merit for your circumstance and see how they work out. The idea is to TEST not take for granted. or relyon what works for others.
Also I suggest you do what I do and find out what your customers want and like. It's almost universally different to what you will hear as the general consensus of opinion on forums AND, what you THINK yourself.
I make it an absoloute point to talk to my clients at every event and ask them questions and drag their feedback out of them. When I hear something repeatedly I look at what I can do to accomodate what the people want. this has led to me offering a range of products that are all good sellers although quite limited to what a lot of other people offer. I never get complaints that my product range is too small and i don't confuse the crap out of people by dazzling them with a lot of things that confuse the issue and are going to be low turnove.
It's pretty simple, give them what they want and they will give you their money. I don't get out of bed a 4am to drag my sorry butt and $20K+ of onsite trailer and setup into the cold or searing heat for the good of my health, I do it for the bux so it pays to listen to the clients.
If they tell you your pic quality is crap when you shoot Jpeg, listen to them and look at the alternatives to fix it. If they say they love the pics, listen to that too.
Good luck with it all Bob.
All I can say to you is
Thanks once again Glort for taking the time to reply to me which I appreciate. From what you say it is perfectly true. I can see you have put a hell of a lot of thought and effort which has certainly reaped loads of success which you totally deserve and with your positive views has culminated in a lot of very satisfying customers.
I will certainly take on board what you have said and will definately give Jpgs a try.
Thanks once again and I wish you well.
Cheers
Bob