Show jumping

double_entendre

Huntington Beach had a show this past weekend and my wife was sick, so I grabbed the camera and wandered over. Never taken pictures of the horses with the DSLR like this before. Biggest mistake was that my 80-200 was too long. I pretty much never needed more than 80mm and was wishing for a bit less often. Maybe should have used the 18-105 kit lens I have instead. Lesson learned.

C&C welcome, of course. Very much an amateur in the editing department. I'm not happy with some of the backgrounds, to be sure. I did play around a bit with aperture. Also not happy with where the camera was wanting to focus. I need to understand the focus modes better.

Got a few more I want to post, but I'm still filtering (deleting) and editing.

My wife used to compete at show jumping as a kid and one of the pictures I showed her included a guy that was a trainer there 25-30 years ago. "My god, I remember him!" It was fun to get her feedback on some of the pictures. "That horse is bored out of his mind."

double_entendre

I'm really struggling with these two photos.

The first one, I know it's a cardinal sin to crop the standards (the things that hold the rails) out, but on any reasonably sized photo I lose the expression on the girl's face and I just love that about the photo. I guess the answer is that it's only a cardinal sin to show jumpers and the rest of the world doesn't care. In that case, I crop it slightly below the horse's right front hoof and I'm happy. Thoughts?

In the other one, the white jacket the gal standing in the foreground has on is totally blown out. I tried fixing it without going over the top, but still think I might have gone too far. Thoughts?

Thanks!

jonh68

I think you were not long enough and didn't take advantage of what you had. You shot this like a wide angle, not a telephoto. With a long lens the goal is to put the viewer into the action and melt away the backgrounds. Wide angle lenses give a sense of being part of the scene as a whole. The mistake isn't choice of lens but how you used it.

Assuming it was a 80-200 2.8, shooting at 200mm at 2.8 renders backgrounds to the point you don't have to be too concerned about them and it isolates the subjects. Using wide angle the backgrounds are part of the story and help frame and put into context what is happening. Next time shoot really tight with the 80-200 and use it for its intended purpose which is to get in tight and isolate subjects.

double_entendre

jonh68 wrote: »

I think you were not long enough and didn't take advantage of what you had. You shot this like a wide angle, not a telephoto. With a long lens the goal is to put the viewer into the action and melt away the backgrounds. Wide angle lenses give a sense of being part of the scene as a whole. The mistake isn't choice of lens but how you used it.

Assuming it was a 80-200 2.8, shooting at 200mm at 2.8 renders backgrounds to the point you don't have to be too concerned about them and it isolates the subjects. Using wide angle the backgrounds are part of the story and help frame and put into context what is happening. Next time shoot really tight with the 80-200 and use it for its intended purpose which is to get in tight and isolate subjects.

Yeah, my intention was to be able to include the full jump and standard, but I didn't think I'd be as close to the horses as I was.

You're probably right. Should have gone for the closeups. The expressions on some of the riders were great.

Thank you for the feedback.