Shooting in a Barn
Recently both my wife and daughter have begun taking horse lessons. There are plenty of chances for great shots, however I am really struggling given the low light (or mix of light if the barn doors are open) and fast movement of the subjects.
I am shooting with Canon Digital Rebel and the kit lens for most of the shots (although I do have a 50mm prime lens as well which seems to work better).
Any tips on settings and/or the right lens to use would be appreciated.
Here is a sample image.
http://twhite14.smugmug.com/gallery/3600364#229924812
I am shooting with Canon Digital Rebel and the kit lens for most of the shots (although I do have a 50mm prime lens as well which seems to work better).
Any tips on settings and/or the right lens to use would be appreciated.
Here is a sample image.
http://twhite14.smugmug.com/gallery/3600364#229924812
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Comments
Using your nifty fifty (50mm lens) will let you have the best chance at getting shots. For me, I would set up a remote flash and set yourself in a postion to get a nicely exposed photo. You can set up the flash so that your camera angle and the flash angle are 90 deg. to the horse so that the flash is just after the horse passes it and you are still shooting the front of the horse as it is coming past you.
With remote trigger, you can experiment with the look and feel that pleases your family for pictures.
- Mike
IR Modified Sony F717
http://2H2OPhoto.smugmug.com
Welcome to dgrin! You'll find gold mines of knowledge in the threads and minds of the shooters here.
What happened:
The shot you had linked to has a shutter speed of 1/50th. That's really slow for most anything except shooting landscapes on a tripod. (Unless you want to make blur) What you need to do is shoot at a higher shutter speed so you freeze the action.
What to do:
So first off, loose the telephoto lens for shots like this. It's just not fast enough for proper exposure unless you use a strobe.
*fast glass describes how large your lens aperture can open. *The lower the aperture mumber goes to on your glass, the faster it is. So your 50prime is considered fast glass. (Usually anything f2.8 or lower is considered fast.)
How to do it:
Use your nifty fifty and set your camera to Tv (I think it's Tv on Canon). What the Tv setting does is lock in the shutter speed to whatever you tell it to be. So set your shutter speed to 1/350 or higher. This will help freeze the action so you don't get those blurs. What the camera will do is automatically adjust the aperture (open up the diaphragm that allows light into the camera) so you get a good exposure. So if you look at the settings on your camera, you'll see the shutter speed stay at 350 (or whatever) and the aperture (fstop) will be going up and down depending on how light or dark the area in the frame is.
If that doesn't work:
If the camera can't properly expose the shot. It will say something like "low" meaning the camera can't make the glass open up enough to properly expose the shot. In this case, use an on board flash unless you have a strobe. We'll talk about that if the previous doesn't work
Extra nuggets:
Another thing you want to do is shoot from the other side of the barn so you have the light hitting the front of your subject instead of back lighting. Back lighting is a bit complicated and you should work front lighting out first.
You always want to pay attention to where your largest light source is coming from and get between that light and your subject when your shooting. This way the light is working with you. After a bit you won't even be thinking about it. It will be second nature.
There is a little bit of a learning curve when your first picking up SLR's. But once the learning curve is done, it gets much easier.
Hope this helped a bit.
Cheers,
-Jon
Your daughter is riding Saddle Seat. These horses usually are fine with flash lighting- flash is routinely used by the show photographer for this type of riding at most horse shows. Ask the trainer first, and then if anyone else is riding ask them also if it's OK for you to use flash. You really, REALLY don't want to cause a horse to spook. It's very unpleasant to see a rider come off and worry that your flash photography might have caused it. Even if no one gets hurt you will probably be told you can't shoot with flash (or even told you can't shoot at all) at the barn anymore.
Before you take photos of your daughter while she's riding past at speed (trotting or cantering), take a few shots while the horse is walking or jogging at the other end of the arena - just so the horse can become accustomed to the flash from a distance. Then take one more shot as the horse is coming towards you but still fairly far away. (Don't worry about exposure, or if these shots come out - you aren't taking photos, you are just firing the flash for the horse's benefit) Only if the horse is OK with all of this should you try to take a flash-lit shot when the horse is closer or moving faster.
Tip #1 - Aim at the horse's shoulder or just behind the shoulder (where your daughter's knee or calf is), so that you center the horse in your shot. When you aim at your daughter's head, you get a lot of dead space above her head, and cut off the horse's legs.
Tip #2 - Take the shot when the horse's knee is at the highest point. At the trot the other front leg will be vertical. Here's a gallery of saddle seat shots from a horse show (not my photos) - the 4th shot is taken at a better moment in the stride than the first 3 shots.
http://echohillphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/803321
The canter shot of that rider (10th shot) is also much better than the shots before or after it. The first canter shot of the palomino (8th shot) is much better than the next shot of the same horse (9th shot). To get good shots of horses you need to train your eye, and then train your shutter finger to press the shutter the right amount of time before the moment, so you can catch the horse at the right moment in the stride.
I use a 70-200 lens for all my equine photograhy. With a wider angle lens you can end up with distortion - the horse's head will look huge and rump look small. That's probably not the effect you want.
Good luck!
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
You titled your thread Shooting in a Barn, but most of the images I see in your linked slide show are outdoors in the late afternoon - early evening at a horse track. A few of the images earlier in the day seem better exposed, horses and I suspect family members.
But some of your backlit shots are badly under exposed, and as the light goes from late afternoon to evening, the horses are not sharp due to too slow a shutter speed and under exposed as well. Your daylight shots in sunlight are much better, because they were easier for the camera to manage in the Auto mode you were shooting in.
Why don't you describe your level of understanding of exposure settings, fstops, ISOs, shutter speeds.
You will find that the folks who post images here tend to shoot in Manual Mode or Av or Tv, as that gives them more control of the camera and its adjustment for proper exposure. The Auto modes are best avoided for the best results in more challenging lighting situations.
In the dark interior of a barn, even f2.8 lenses may struggle unless the ISO is higher than 800. Do you understand how to shoot in RAW also?
I don't think flash will help a great deal at a race track if it is allowed at all. It may not be a problem at a horse show as previously mentioned.
Again, welcome to dgrin. You will find lots of help here I am sure.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Arenas are very difficult even with an off camera flash, because unless there is a dropped ceiling (most do not have this) then there is no where that your flash will bouch off of, the arenas are very large and dark to begin with and eat up even the flash light.
I shoot horse shows and there is one local arena that prooves to be troublesome each and everytime! a high iso, off camera flash and my 70-200mm 2.8f L lens and I still have troubles.
A few pointers for you in shooting Hosses is to look for a telephoto lens, someone already mentioned the distortion that happens with other lenses. Also when shooting the lope/canter timing is most important, horses can look really akward in the wrong moment of the shot. What I find most effective, is when I am in the show pen is to follow the horse through the camera get a feel for their 3 beat gait and snap as often as you can when they are in this position
http://cdonovanphotos.smugmug.com/gallery/3173511/1/198306024/Medium
http://cdonovanphotos.smugmug.com/gallery/2824283/1/178984876/Medium
I personally like this angle the most, very flattering for the riders and the 3/4 angle keeps the horse in porportion with the right lens
http://cdonovanphotos.smugmug.com/gallery/2824283/1/178984876/Medium
maybe this was more info than you were looking for, but I hope it's a help!
Shooting any horse-y shots inside is difficult your standard indoor arenas are very difficult.
Whether you use a flash or not you'll have some trouble. Flashes are difficult to use with horses for three main reasons. 1) Lots of dust! Direct flash and even, on occasion, bounced flash result in glaring, ghostlike dust reflections. 2) Glowing eyeballs. Everyone loves a demonic looking horse, right?
Many indoors have windows or doors that create large spots bright color and this can really confuse your camera and cause the meter to be wrong.
Sometimes you can have fun with this, like when a pony misbehaves infront of the door.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/229558990-M-1.jpg
You can't really up exposure on a shot like this because it will just make the sunlight brighter.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/229562632-M-1.jpg
It's easier to take photos inside when the doors are closed or the sun is low enough (or directly overhead) and not coming through the windows.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/229571363-M-1.jpg
Sometimes black and white is the only way to go to salvage an indoor shot.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/229553058-L-1.jpg
A new trend in indoors are called cover alls. These white material structures allow light to enter so they cut down costs for day time lighting. They also reflect light and can require less $ to light at night too. If you shoot in one of these they almost always shoot very warm (orange) in white balance. (If you're shooting RAW this isn't a problem as you can adjust it in post. Also, FYI most regular indoors shoot cold (blue) in white balance.)
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/224305148-M-1.jpg
My local indoor show venue has HORRIBLE lighting too.
But, a high ISO can sometimes get you close enough that a slight push in RAW will save the picture.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/169278917-M.jpg
Lighter colored horses are easier to shoot indoors, dark horses are hard to shoot inside. Raw is nice because you can play a little with exposure and then blend two images two images together if you need too.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/169284143-M.jpg
Some indoors have awesome lighting,
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/145820804-M-1.jpg
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/145822158-M.jpg
Basically, if your camera can handle it shot ISO 1600 or higher in dim indoors. Shutter speeds are dependant on what the horse is doing, but more than likely your not going to want to go below 1/320. Even that may be too slow for some shots. You'll want to use continous focus since timing is so important. You'll have to learn the horse's gaits to determine WHEN you should take the shot. A fast lens is your safest bet. The 2.8 lenses are pretty standard in the indoor, but even they can have trouble sometimes. I have generally carry my 50mm 1.8 just incase.
Best of luck and keep posting pictures! Welcome again to Dgrin!
SmugMug Support Specialist - www.help.smugmug.com
http://www.phyxiusphotos.com
Equine Photography in Maryland - Dressage, Eventing, Hunters, Jumpers
If a 50mm f1.8 is a good lens, is an 85mm f1.8 or a 135f2 of any use?
A 35mm f1.4 might be useful also.
Dust will really be the bane of using flash, I had not thought of that.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Shooting any low light area is tough. I just did my first at an arena in Amarillo for a rodeo.
Christina's comments are great. Thats about all you can do depeneding on the situation.
Here's some I shot with Canon 30D using 70-200 IS USM 2.8.
2.8f the enitre time. I tried shutters varing from 125 to 500, and ISO's 200 to 1600. Played with them all. The 1600 was great, but the photos become grainy. I also shot a little dark in the arena, so I could drop the ISO a bit to remove any grainyness. Than brightened in Photoshop. And used RAW.
Amarillo Arena.
http://Wrangler33.smugmug.com/gallery/3557038/1/205279331
New Jersey Cowtown at night.
This was reall poor lighting, I think I ran the enitre night above ISO1000, and all were grainy and needed photshop help.
http://Wrangler33.smugmug.com/photos/sspopup.mg?AlbumID=3566952
At Amarillo I got meet the photgrapher e gave some great advice, basically everything Christina said.
He used Strobes, and I caught a few going off in my pictures, and if made a huge difference. They were set up in the stands.
http://www.LongRanch.com
Thanks Pathfinder,
I love my 70-200 2.8, so it really is my primary lens. I was probably rather funny looking when shooting the pictures of the girl on the paint horse jumping in the indoor. I had the D50 with the 70-200 (because it has fairly usable ISO 1600 shots) and then the D80 with the 50mm and the jumps were 4 strides apart so I kept doing quick changes.
The 50mm f1.8 is my only prime, I'm a little hesitant of primes just because they're one length and that's it! Eek, no zoom?! What to do, what to do?
The only problems I'd see with the primes is that depending on your location in the ring and the location of the horse you may either not have enough reach or may not be wide enough to get the shoot. Most farm indoors (venues owned and operated by farms) are regulation size of 20x40 (meters) or 20x60 (meters) with little room for spectators. So, you have to think that the rider could be anywhere from right next to you to across the ring (20m) or at the end of the arena (40-60m). For flat (non-jumping pictures) you'll want mostly full side shots or approx. 45 degree angle shots when the horse crosses on a diagonal to change direction. Some full frontals are nice, some rear angle shots are nice, rarely are butt shots nice.
So, that was a rather long winded way of saying that yes...primes are good as long as you're comfortable shooting with them.
SmugMug Support Specialist - www.help.smugmug.com
http://www.phyxiusphotos.com
Equine Photography in Maryland - Dressage, Eventing, Hunters, Jumpers
I can see why the 70-200 is a good choice. On a crop camera, where IS is really not that useful ( horses are moving all the time so IS is less helpful ), the Sigma 50-150mm f2.8 zoom might work well also.
It sounds like a challenging area to get good pictures with the low light, constant movement, dust, and inability of the shooter to easily change shooting positions. I have learned some things from this thread.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
To answer the questions that have been asked:
1) No flashes allowed in the barn.
2) Shooting position is generally from a fixed point (although the owner of the stable is getting more comfortable with me being out in the riding area).
3) I mainly shoot in Av mode.
4) The owner recently put up the coveralls mentioned by Phyxius.
5) My experience with exposures, f-stops, etc, prior to this post I would have said was medium, after reading what I don't know clearly I am a novice.
That being said, I have read what everyone has said and tried to apply it.
Here is the result:
http://twhite14.smugmug.com/gallery/3995368#232347734-M-LB
http://twhite14.smugmug.com
This is an improvement, but you can still improve even more by making the following changes:
1) Increase your ISO. Yes, the image will be noisier, but there's no way around it - you need to use a faster shutter and don't have enough light to get a faster shutter without either using a flash (which isn't allowed) or bumping the ISO.
2) Shoot in RAW, not jpeg! This is critical - you can proces the raw file yourself (rather than let the camera do it automatically) and tweak the settings for better results. Always, ALWAYS shoot in RAW. There is no advantage to letting the camera do the raw conversion and save the file as jpeg. Memory cards have become relatively cheap - never let the camera throw away pixels!
3) You are still focusing and framing too high. This cuts off the horse's legs and leaves a lot of dead space over your daughter's head. If the horse is far enough away that you can get the everything (from your daughter's helmet to the horse's hoofs) in the frame, you will find that the center is the horse's chest or your daughter's knee/thigh - not your daughter's body or head. I know that you want to get photos of "your daughter" but trust me, she wants to see the whole horse in some of the shots! As the horse moves closer (or as you zoom in, if you use a zoom in better light) you can tighten the framing to reach from the top of your daughter's helmet to the middle or bottom of the horse's chest in a portrait orientation. Again, you need to center and focus the image lower - around the top of the horse's shoulder or your daugher's hips. Rotate the camera to portriat orientation when shooting from the front of the horse - use landscape orientation when shooting from the side. Don't cut off the horse mid-head. If you can't get the horse's head and your daughter in the frame, then frame the shot so it is of your daughter only. If you get a good shot of your daughter that has the horse's head cut off - crop it to only show your daughter rather than show the whole image "as shot".
4) If your camera has a setting to "override" the shutter speed when the light falls, use Tv rather than Av. Set the ISO to 1600, the shutter to 400, and the camera will automatically open to f/1.8 in low light. If there isn't enough light it will keep the aperture at f/1.8 and slow the shutter, but when there IS enough light then you will get 1/400 and when there's ample light then the aperture will close slightly (e.g. 2 or 2.8 or 4), giving you better Depth of Field (DoF). If you leave it on Av at f1.8 then you never can have a bigger DoF and can end up with more shutter speed than you need when you have ample light.
5) Find the spot in the arena where the light is brightest, and shoot there - wait for the horse to come to you. Don't take shots in the darker areas. Work where you have light!
Good luck!
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
As I look at your gallery, the color temperature of the lighting seems to vary a lot. The walls of the barn I believe are a somewhere near white to a light gray, but they appear magenta or yellow in many of your pictures. This means you do not have the color temperature nailed down. If you shoot in RAW, I would bet you can use the white balance eye dropper on the walls to help with the color balance. Once you know the right temperature, you can even set that as the white balance in your camera.
The other thing I notice, is that ALL the lights are Directly overhead, and that this leads to your rider's faces being in deep shadows frequently. If you cannot add light in any manner ( flash would really help here) you may need to try to get your riders to raise their chins and look up more, so that they get some light on their face. The brim of their helmets shade their faces from the overhead lighting alot.
Or find a spot in the arena where some window/door lets more light in on their faces.
Direct overhead lighting really sucks bigtime for shooting. BTDT - The next time time I brought big studio flashes to light up their faces.
Shooting at ISO 1600, a small speedlite will really improve things alot. Are you really sure that a small flash is verboten?
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Lets look at this shot ---
Overhead lighting is indeed tough, but you don't have to make it tougher...
Every light source has an axis. Outward from that the light "feathers". (you couldn't have a better picture to show this, both on the wall and on the ground)
Most of the pics I looked at you timed your shot(s) after the horse/rider rode under the light. Notice how they are back-lit.
Let's use the "feathering" of the overhead lights to our advantage. Shoot your subject(s) just as they are "entering" the feathered light. This will effectively give you about 2 stops more light, and you didn't have to buy anything.
Let's just say I've shot in a "few" arena's. Take every advantage you can squeeze out of it.