Better success today with riding pic (I believe) C&C welcomed

[KimC]

Out for another try today. I like this better than the "bright sun" riding pictures. ISO 200; 85mm; F2.2; 1/2000
I decided to give my 85mm a go today rather than the zoom, and I liked the result better...

Posting for those who like the horse/rider pics :-)

[Geoff F]

I think I would slightly increase the midtones but keep the shadows dark. However, I suspect the highlights, with light coming from the right, will soon start to over expose.

It would be nice if her face was just a fraction brighter. Which would have been fine if she had been going in the other direction.

[Manfred M]

Kim - it looks like you had some fairly diffuse lighting (nicely said, fairly cloudy out), so you are not fighting with the light that much.

I would agree with Geoff; the shot is slightly underexposed and a bit more brightness in the mid-tones would help. Compositionally, you are a bit too centred. A fairly simple compositional "trick" would be to offset the image a bit more so that the back of the horse is closer to the right side of the image and the head has a bit more clearance on the left side, in the direction that it is looking / moving. A bit more brightness in the rider's face would help to; something that is pretty easy to do in Post.

[rpcrowe]

Hi Kim...

The advantage of shooting at f/2.2 using an 85mm focal length (besides better image quality at ISO 200 than shooting at ISO 3200) is that the selective focus aids in keeping your subject separated from the background. This worked quite well in this image with the subject sharp and the background somewhat soft...

A cloudy bright sky is a great illumination with the sun light diffused by the clouds. It's like shooting with a giant softbox providing the light...

A simple fix for the face would be to use the dodge tool (if you are working with Photoshop). You could also use NIK Viveza-2 (if you have that program) by putting a control point on the face and adjusting the inclusion circle to select only the face. Then you can play with a combination of several sliders: brightness, contrast, and/or shadow adjustments to get the face where you like it...

Additionally, working with levels can allow you to get the most out of an image without losing much in the highlights or shadows (again this is true for Photoshop - I cannot speak to other programs)...



Above is where the arrows ended up so that the image looks good on my computer....

By pressing the ALT key and using the cursor to move the left (shadow value) arrow to the right until you begin to see parts of the blackest portions of the image appear will give you a fairly correct dark value. Then switching to the (highlight value) arrow on the right and moving that arrow to the left (while pressing the ALT key) until you being to see parts of the highlights show will give you a fairly correct high lights level. Then you can play with the center arrow (just a smidgen) to adjust the mid tone levels....

Compositionally, I tend to like more space at the front of a subject so that the subject has room to move...

Finally, I tend to use fill flash in many of my outdoor shots (when I am not shooting from great distances or in burst mode). It's amazing the extra "oompf" that fill flash will provide even at distances further that you would expect...

[Kodiak]

Out for another try today.

Hi Kim,

See to frame a little loosely upon take, this will give more
latitude for final crop and rendition.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Kim,

You have caught good movement with this one, I like it.

Compositionally agree about giving it more room in front of the horse, it's easy I find when shooting moving subjects to overlook the time taken between the brain saying click and the finger doing it in which time the subject has moved a bit

Grahame

[KimC]

To all my wonderful teachers -- I have made adjustments based on the comments provided - made her face brighter, changed the crop and increased exposure and tones. I use Lightroom. I used Essentials before, but with this version of PP, it's totally difference, esp with RAW files. So figured I would learn LR first and then move to PP.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, the exposure used gave a bit of warmth to mostly muted colors, as the rider's skintones are only a small portion of the image, the warm treatment is an added complement.

[KimC]

Nicely done, the exposure used gave a bit of warmth to mostly muted colors, as the rider's skintones are only a small portion of the image, the warm treatment is an added complement.

Thank you John :-)

[Mike Buckley]

Major improvement. Well done!

What is the specific reason you included more foreground information? What does that information do to improve the composition?

[KimC]

Major improvement. Well done!

What is the specific reason you included more foreground information? What does that information do to improve the composition?

Thank you Mike!

Cropped differently to give the horse some place to go - as some of the comments suggested.

Personally the other version is more emotional for me -- that one image and their expressions signifies all they have been through. When I saw it, my eyes filled up...