Indeed! As I read your reply, I began to realize that I am working to achieve a goal that is a challenge and one that seems beyond my skill level. In addition to the horse and rider moving toward my camera lens, there is a rope that swings in front of the cowboy, girl in this event, and everyone wears a wide brimmed cowboy hat which shades their face. The D5 is notorious for making a mess when trying to render skin tone and color on its sensor of shaded skin, or shaded anything. As if that was not enough, this event is backlit at this arena. Thus, an EV of +.7 or more is needed.
I could be in the arena, which would enable me to use a 70-200 f/2.8, however, I am reluctant. I don't want to interfere with the event, put the horse and rider in jeopardy, or put myself at risk of injury.
However, I could be in the alley beside the arena, between the arena fence and the outboard alley fence. Calf's are run in the alley, but my presence is acceptable, as long as I wear the proper, and required, cowboy hat. This position will enable me to compose a side shot, which will consist of the horse and rider and the calf. I can use a wider angle lens, 28-70 f/2.8, which will give me a greater depth of focus, than the 600mm which I had been using. (is that right?) In addition, the lens won't be pointed at the sun, and the background will consist of sponsor's banners on the fence. The benefit is that I won't interfere with the event and I will be safe. I'll need to climb the fence when the calf's are moved through the alley.
The downside is that I have not attempted Breakaway from this position and this weekend is the last chance I'll have. If I don't get superb photos, it won't be a good thing. Even so, in light of my failure last weekend, an attempt to produce quality photos from a different position, with a different composition, is preferable to another failure. I will go to the arena this week and see what lens I need to use.
Thank you.
A few thoughts to add:
1) A subject moving toward the camera at speed is one of the hardest things for the camera to focus upon, because the subject to camera distance is always changing, thus it has to resample and move the focus constantly. More modern cameras have a lot of AF systems and setups that can help so do read around how your camera can be best setup for this kind of shot.
At its most basic AF sensors seek out variations in contrast within the scene and aim to focus upon the point of contrast difference that is the closest to the camera underneath all active AF points. Hence why for spots and action many people use 1 AF point since then you tell teh camera where you want it sharp (many cameras will also use AF points around the selected one to aid the focusing system).
2) A horse and rider moving toward you is challenging in many ways:
a) You've got a moving subject so you need a fast enough shutterspeed. My own experiments are that 1/640sec is the slowest you can go to get a sharp shot with horse and rider. At 1/500sec hooves and hair is going to start blurring (and likely ropes too). So that gives you at least one bottom end speed. Any faster and its going to improve sharpness.
b) The subject is coming toward you, as stated above this is hard for the camera. Sometimes an angled or side on photo can be a lot easier because the shift in distance becomes far less marked second to second.
c) A horse and rider is a very deep subject. From the horses eyes to the riders eyes is quite a distance, even at range with a long focal length. This can mean that very wide apertures can make an already tricky situation even harder to land focus. Sometimes f4 or even up to f8 might be preferable for certain shots. OF course events are doubly hard because you often have no control over the background or lighting or positioning (and often even your own position is limited).
If you wanted cow and rider in focus then you're likely looking for when horse and cow are very close and for a smaller aperture such as f8 or even f10. At least if they are all heading directly toward you.
d) The horse moves. It's head can be going up and down and the rider too (depending on the nature of the motion). I tend to find that for this reason the horses shoulder is often a better target for the focus point. It's often close enough to the riders face in terms of the plane of focus and the shoulder isn't tossing around quite as much as other parts of the animal and rider. It's also a slightly larger area so its easier to keep the AF point locked onto it, plus most of the area surrounding it should be horses neck,head and riders body - so all parts that the focus shouldn't be bad having it on (unless you're very wide open and thus have a very thin depth of field).
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