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Horse Back Riding

Dan Cohen

New member
This wasn't a competition or anything. Just practice for riders and myself. :D

Shot with 100- 400 on the XT. Shot in AI servo, but I still dont really understand how to use that with the * button?

This is the original picture. Taken in RAW/ RGB and converter to JPEG/ sRGB.

199756.jpg


Here it is after some PP in DPP.

Brightness- -0.17
WB- Cloudy
Saturation- 1
Sharpness- 3

Everything else left untouched. I dont know enough about tone curve to be messing around with that.

199755.jpg


And here are the focus points. I just figured out how to do this in Zoom Browser and thought it was really cool. You can also see my settings in the gray box.

199757.jpg


Next time, Ill use the top focus point instead. I also meant to have aperture on 5.6 instead of 6.3. I must have changed it accidentally some how. 400 shutter just barley got the job done, but it should have been higher. Another thing I learned is that riders like pictures taken at a 45* angle. I also dont like the background. I guess the trees/ sky is alright, but the power line on top isn't good. Lastly, I wish I got more bokeh.

Id also like some advice on how to crop jumping pictures.
 

Dan Cohen

New member
Alright, heres the cropped version. I also recently read that sharpening should be done after resizing, so I did that in PS. Makes a big difference.

199912.jpg
 
Dan,

This thread http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1323
has a great explanation of using the star button. The entire concept was confusing to me when I first read Nill's sticky on sports basics. I got some great help in understanding these concept here from Nill et. al.

To summarize: Set camera to CF4: option 3 and put the camera in AF Servo and that will use the star to focus. Don't let go of the * while tracking your moving object and fire off a burst with the shutter button at the appropriate time.
 

Anil Mungal

New member
Thanks for the link, Ill read over that.

Another focusing option is to pre-focus on the part of the rail that the horse will be jumping (usually the middle). I find that much easier allowing me more time to concentrate on framing, and on timing of the horse over the gate.
 

Barry Johnston

New member
Focusing issues....

Hi Dan,

I too had some focusing issues at show jumping events using my 300 2.8 and AI Servo; and I wasn't very successful using the other focusing points at all. If you focus at the chest of the horse using f/4.5/5.6, the DoF should be enough to keep things in focus.

I have, however, been more successful by prefocusing (as Anil suggested) at about a 45 degree angle to the horse and rider using HS shutter release.

Unfortunately all equestrian events have been cancelled due to equine influenza, which apparently is a highly contageous virus. Due to this, I haven't seen a horse in 6 months.

Good Luck !!

Regards,
Barry.
 
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