Equestrian Riding and Jumping Competition

[grandpawrichard]

I spent the day yesterday with my oldest Grand Daughter Sheryl and 3 of her Equestrian Riding Group at a Competition in Woodenville, WA.

I was their Official unpaid Photographer. I enjoyed the day even though it was super Nasty weather. Heavy Rain, wind and cold made it pretty miserable for me and the riders.

I took well over 200 photographs, so I still have a ton of photo-editing to do! But I did get some really nice photos. Here is a series of photos that I took during the jumping contest. The Lady that is riding has been Wonderful to my Grand Daughter!

This Lady bought all of the Equestrian Riding Outfit for my Grand Daughter Sheryl and has done nothing but help train and coach Sheryl. Her name is Cindy and I personally feel that she is a True Ambassador to the Sport Of Equestrian Riding. Sheryl is Not the First youth that this Lady has sponsored either!

My hat is off to Cindy and I hope that she enjoys the DVD of photos that I am going to make for her!

Dick

 

[grandpawrichard]

The weather sure was not cooperating with the Riding Competition Schedule yesterday. It was extremely dark out, Raining like a son-of-a-gun and COLD! Normally I prefer to shoot at 100 ISO or 200 ISO max. but I had to resort to 400 ISO to get my shutter speeds up enough to capture the photos without any blurring. It was so nasty out that I didn't want to set up my tripod and use a bigger lens, so I stood under a small umbrella and took the photos with my 17-40L f/4 lens.
When I got home I had to crop the dickens out of the photos to get these photos.

Here is the EXIF info for each photo:

Photo 1:
Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF17-40mm f/4L USM
Image Date: 2011-03-12 12:41:00 -0800
Focal Length: 40.0mm
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.0050 s (1/200)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: Adobe RGB (1998)

Photo 2:
Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF17-40mm f/4L USM
Image Date: 2011-03-12 12:39:46 -0800
Focal Length: 40.0mm
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.0050 s (1/200)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: Adobe RGB (1998)

Photo 3:
Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF17-40mm f/4L USM
Image Date: 2011-03-12 12:41:00 -0800
Focal Length: 40.0mm
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.0050 s (1/200)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: Adobe RGB (1998)

Photo 4:
Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF17-40mm f/4L USM
Image Date: 2011-03-12 12:39:46 -0800
Focal Length: 40.0mm
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.0050 s (1/200)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: Adobe RGB (1998)

The photos taken inside the barn are taking quite a bit of work to bring them up to reasonable and usable standards. The lighting inside the barn is atrocious! Extremely Poorly Lighting making for a very dark arena! I had to resort to 1,600 ISO and 1/60th.sec. shutter speeds to capture photos with my f/4 400 mm. L lens. The place for spectators is in a dark, crowded and Junk riddled area about 16' deep and 32' long that is quite a distance from the riding area, so the Big Lens is a MUST! I'll post photos later.

Dick

 

[PhotoWrangler]

When you shot each of these photos, what part of the rider (or horse) where you focusing on?

 

[grandpawrichard]

Christopher,
I really can't tell you where the focus point was because I was so intent on catching the action and I took so many photos yesterday that it is all a blur. My guess would be that I focus on the front of the horse looking at the photos.

Dick