Cowgirl

[KimC]

Hi everyone. I took this photo at 11:00 p.m. last evening in an indoor arena with poor lighting. Looking for assistance on how I could have made it better - I do love the action in the photo. focal length was 210mm F 4.8 expos 1/200. It was on manual with auto focus. Thank you

[Shadowman]

The only thing you can do with your current gear is decrease your shutter speed, assuming your lens can only shoot t shown aperture.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Kim There is a green colour cast on the image, I think it is because of the lights in the arena. You can fix it by adjusting white balance manually or try auto white balance that helps. As John mentioned above , your shutter speed is too long for such a shot. I would shoot around 1/1000. If you use PS, you might as well try shake reduction filter to save the image.

[Geoff F]

Nothing you could do to get a perfect photo from that scene, Kim. Possibly an expensive faster lens might have helped a little; at least you wouldn't have had to shoot with the lens wide open, which usually gives a few problems.

The only real option, which probably wasn't acceptable, would be to use high speed flash.

Your Iso (6400) is already much higher than I would consider acceptable for good quality. One of those instances where you simply have to accept that you won't get a perfect shot I'm afraid.

But yes, give the WB a little tweak as previously mentioned.

[Manfred M]

You are definitely shooting under some fairly tough conditions; poor lighting and probably a fairly slow lens (I assume you are shooting wide open). Based on the amount of noise I see, I would assume you have made a fairly drastic crop too; your choice of ISO 6400 is not helping here as the colour noise is quite high. Shooting from a closer distance would definitely help here too.

As Binnur has pointed out, you have a very significant green colour cast in some parts of the image; this is usually related to the fluorescent lighting in the building, so addition of magenta during post production would at least partially help here. On the other hand, the background looks okay, or perhaps a bit warm, so the type of light used over the stands is not the same as over the arena; so you have a difficult situation there. A selective blend in post to try to better match the different light sources is not a trivial task.

Your focus seems off as horse and rider look a bit soft, over and above any motion blurr (mostly noticeable around the horse's feet). I can't tell which focusing mode you are using and don't know the D3300 at all; if it has a continuous focus mode, this would be how I would set up; that way your focus would be sharper. You are a touch underexposed; the horse and rider are perhaps a 1/2 stop too dark.

I would also look at changing my framing. The horse and rider are too close to the right hand side of the image; leaving more space on the side the horse and rider are headed to tends to work better in most cases.

[KimC]

Thanks everyone for your feedback and ideas. It was a tough situation, and she was rather far away. I'll give some of your suggestions a try.

[Manfred M]

and she was rather far away.

You have answered your own question. To quote (paraphrase?) the famed photographer, Robert Capa. "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough".

Get closer and you will solve a number of the issues you see in this image.

[TonyW]

It's a pity about the technical problems here because it is a good picture otherwise. I don't see what could be done about it unless photoshop's smart sharpening might help with the softness and noise.

[KimC]

Point taken - here's an example from the same evening where closer equaled better.

[bnnrcn]

I like the image Kim. It just needs removing the green colour cast and sharpening. IMO this one has better image quality than the first one as you have mentioned above

[Shadowman]

2nd could stand a bit of brightening but yes, much better.

[juznobsrvr]

I'm not much of an action shot photographer which means I know diddly squat - but have you considered making the lighting work for you instead of fighting it? I'm thinking maybe blurred motion shots would have been an option. My two cents:-)