At horse show - C&C are most welcome !!!

[Tejal]

Dear All,

Here are some shots, which I had taken during a horse show.

kindly share your C&C for the same. Apart from that, kindly share your view whether such type of shots could be considered under street photography or not.

Regards,

Tejal

Untitled-1 by Tejal Imagination, on Flickr

Untitled-2 by Tejal Imagination, on Flickr

IMG_3831 as Smart Object-1 by Tejal Imagination, on Flickr

IMG_3808 by Tejal Imagination, on Flickr

[Manfred M]

Tejal - these are definitely NOT street photography. These are sport photography shots or event photography. There is nothing "street" about it.

As for the images themselves, you were shooting in some pretty tough lighting conditions. The metadata says around noon and the harsh shadows certainly suggest that this is correct. The metadata also shows that you are shooting at f/5 or so and at those focal lengths, you have a fairly narrow DoF (perhaps a bit too narrow as there is a loss of sharpness on the riders). The shots where the action is heading towards you might suggest a bit more latitude (probably getting more towards f/8 at those focal lengths, perhaps more?). I would have preferred that both the horse's head and the rider's heads be sharp.

I can't see any data on the autofocus mode you used; I would suspect that you were running some form of continuous focus using 3D / multi-focus points? Shooting something as fast as a horse running towards you is challenging shooting, even with the help of a modern camera.

I wonder about your vantage point. You are quite low down and are shooting up which means that the background is quite light and this means a light background (the sky). I'm not sure if there is much you can do about that though as you would have to be up fairly high to cut out the sky.

I think you got some decent shots here, given the tough shooting conditions you were working under.

[Shadowman]

Very nice series, good angle of capture. I would consider cropping a bit of the bottom from 1 and 2.

[rpcrowe]

I like this series but, IMO, they would benefit from some post processing...

I worked with the shadow details a bit, increased structure and also sharpened it a bit. Obviously, I also cropped the image resulting in this...

[Geoff F]

With #1, I would consider losing the right side figure; maybe a mix of crop and clone. You could probably get away with reducing the top and bottom a fraction if you want to keep the same size ratio. Otherwise, I like this shot.

#2 and 3 are OK but you have a bit of shadow in the wrong places, such as faces; but you didn't really have much alternative at the time of shooting.

The last one, with those other people between the horse's legs is a good fun scene.

ps. I now see Richard has come along with an edit along similar lines.

[rpcrowe]

I realize that cameras are different in their ways of autofocusing. My Canon 7D has an autofocus style called Zone AF which I most often use for sports and action photography. This divides the autofocus points into groups. I normally will select the top group of four points because I want the heads/faces of my subjects to be in focus...



I can select any group of points by using the controller joystick. However one nice thing about the 7D is that when I have the top group selected in the landscape or vertical format, it automatically switches to the top group when I move the camera to the other configuration. This keeps the area of focus most often on the heads of the subjects...

This works quite well both for large subjects like horses and riders



Using creative focus is a double edged sword. When using a wide aperture, the background is cast OOF separating the subject from that background. However, sometimes, you need an extra bit of DOF because you want the entire subject in focus. I shot the polo image at f/4 using a 300mm lens and was able to capture the image because the horse and rider were racing at a 3/4 view rather than a front-on view.. The horses head and the rider are in focus while the rear of the horse is just beginning to lose focus and the background is pretty well blurred...

The Zone AF also works well on smaller subjects such as this dog. I nailed the head and ball with Zone AF



I shoot in high speed burst mode in Servo-AF (continuous focus).

I also shoot using at least ISO 200 and often ISO 320 or higher to get the shutter speed I need. I'd rather have a sharp image with a bit of noise than a fuzzy image without noise...

I will also select the AF mode in which the lens doesn't focus to the closest point possible, rather has a limited focus range. This will achieve faster focus than if the lens needed to travel the entire focusing distance from close-up to distance...

I am fairly certain that most cameras have some type of autofocus and burst modes that work well for fast moving subjects.

[Tejal]

Tejal - these are definitely NOT street photography. These are sport photography shots or event photography. There is nothing "street" about it.

As for the images themselves, you were shooting in some pretty tough lighting conditions. The metadata says around noon and the harsh shadows certainly suggest that this is correct. The metadata also shows that you are shooting at f/5 or so and at those focal lengths, you have a fairly narrow DoF (perhaps a bit too narrow as there is a loss of sharpness on the riders). The shots where the action is heading towards you might suggest a bit more latitude (probably getting more towards f/8 at those focal lengths, perhaps more?). I would have preferred that both the horse's head and the rider's heads be sharp.

I can't see any data on the autofocus mode you used; I would suspect that you were running some form of continuous focus using 3D / multi-focus points? Shooting something as fast as a horse running towards you is challenging shooting, even with the help of a modern camera.

I wonder about your vantage point. You are quite low down and are shooting up which means that the background is quite light and this means a light background (the sky). I'm not sure if there is much you can do about that though as you would have to be up fairly high to cut out the sky.

I think you got some decent shots here, given the tough shooting conditions you were working under.

Thanks Manfred for your detailed comment. Yes, time was around 11:30 am or so ? And it is the starting of summer now. Sun becomes quite harsh by this time. In the background some bushes where there and some vehicles were also parked. I tried to avoid those keeping myself quite down. During that event, there were so many photographers. I think photographers were more than the horses .

Such type of action scene, i think I shot for the 1st time. Multi focus, I think I have not used. It was center weighted, which I generally keep and I think I have not changed it.

Apart from that, my camera was on continues shooting mode, but I have not done continues shooting.

I have some little close up shots too, which I will share shortly.

[Tejal]

Very nice series, good angle of capture. I would consider cropping a bit of the bottom from 1 and 2.

thanks for your valuable suggestion.

[Tejal]

I like this series but, IMO, they would benefit from some post processing...

I worked with the shadow details a bit, increased structure and also sharpened it a bit. Obviously, I also cropped the image resulting in this...

This is looking wonderful !! I have some similar shots. I must process them now .

[Tejal]

With #1, I would consider losing the right side figure; maybe a mix of crop and clone. You could probably get away with reducing the top and bottom a fraction if you want to keep the same size ratio. Otherwise, I like this shot.

#2 and 3 are OK but you have a bit of shadow in the wrong places, such as faces; but you didn't really have much alternative at the time of shooting.

The last one, with those other people between the horse's legs is a good fun scene.

ps. I now see Richard has come along with an edit along similar lines.

Thanks for your input .

[Tejal]

I realize that cameras are different in their ways of autofocusing. My Canon 7D has an autofocus style called Zone AF which I most often use for sports and action photography. This divides the autofocus points into groups. I normally will select the top group of four points because I want the heads/faces of my subjects to be in focus...



I can select any group of points by using the controller joystick. However one nice thing about the 7D is that when I have the top group selected in the landscape or vertical format, it automatically switches to the top group when I move the camera to the other configuration. This keeps the area of focus most often on the heads of the subjects...

This works quite well both for large subjects like horses and riders



Using creative focus is a double edged sword. When using a wide aperture, the background is cast OOF separating the subject from that background. However, sometimes, you need an extra bit of DOF because you want the entire subject in focus. I shot the polo image at f/4 using a 300mm lens and was able to capture the image because the horse and rider were racing at a 3/4 view rather than a front-on view.. The horses head and the rider are in focus while the rear of the horse is just beginning to lose focus and the background is pretty well blurred...

The Zone AF also works well on smaller subjects such as this dog. I nailed the head and ball with Zone AF



I shoot in high speed burst mode in Servo-AF (continuous focus).

I also shoot using at least ISO 200 and often ISO 320 or higher to get the shutter speed I need. I'd rather have a sharp image with a bit of noise than a fuzzy image without noise...

I will also select the AF mode in which the lens doesn't focus to the closest point possible, rather has a limited focus range. This will achieve faster focus than if the lens needed to travel the entire focusing distance from close-up to distance...

I am fairly certain that most cameras have some type of autofocus and burst modes that work well for fast moving subjects.

Thanks for your detailed reply. In my camera I think I don't have multi focus selection or group selection option. But autofocus, I should have used. I will take care of this next time .

[rpcrowe]

Pre-focusing also helps auto focus speed with any lens. That is simply to use manual focus to have the lens focused approximately where you want the image to be shot and then switch back to auto focus. The lens elements, then don't have to physically travel as far to nail the focus...

[dbmurrell]

If these are just your first attempts, I'd say you're off to a very good start. Rather than waste a lot of words here, I'd point you to a set of good, free video tutorials on sport photography. Even though these are aimed to cover traditional American sports, a lot of the techniques also apply to equestrian events. Scott Kelby's tutorial on the aforementioned link provides a good overview.

Sports photography is very demanding on equipment, but don't be discouraged if you don't want to throw a lot of money at it.

[John 2]

Nice series Tejal. Nicely caught with the camera but Richard's post processing is worth covnsidering.

[Tejal]

Pre-focusing also helps auto focus speed with any lens. That is simply to use manual focus to have the lens focused approximately where you want the image to be shot and then switch back to auto focus. The lens elements, then don't have to physically travel as far to nail the focus...

I see... Thanks for the information. I never tried this. Quite useful information you shared here.

[Tejal]

If these are just your first attempts, I'd say you're off to a very good start. Rather than waste a lot of words here, I'd point you to a set of good, free video tutorials on sport photography. Even though these are aimed to cover traditional American sports, a lot of the techniques also apply to equestrian events. Scott Kelby's tutorial on the aforementioned link provides a good overview.

Sports photography is very demanding on equipment, but don't be discouraged if you don't want to throw a lot of money at it.

Thank you very much Dave for the feedback and especially for the tutorial .

[Tejal]

Nice series Tejal. Nicely caught with the camera but Richard's post processing is worth covnsidering.

yes, his is quite good .