Looking for opinions on one photo-CC please!

[Sonoma]

I don't like the background in this shot, but there was literally no where to go to get away from a busy background. I do like the riders colors and the motion blur in the horses hoofs.

Any and all comments welcomed.
Thanks

 

[Big Mike]

I agree, the background isn't helping at all, but the horses & riders themselves make for a great photo.

I see that you shot at F5.6. You could have stopped down to F4 on that lens, to help blur the background a little more, although that would sacrifice the DOF for the horses, which is already pretty thin.
If you could have gotten up higher, maybe only 6-10 feet would have been enough, you might have been able to get the buildings out of the frame, and just have grass & fence as the background.

Also, the photo is tilted. That usually bothers me quite a bit. I would suggest straightening it, but I worry that if you rotate enough to make the horizontal lines level...that it may appear like they are running downhill....or maybe not, I'd have to see it.

 

[shootermcgavin]

Is the blur really needed in this photo, I don't think it does it for me. I think at a higher angle and a sharper shot of the horses would be how I would have liked it most, but everyone has their own preferences. I wonder if horse owners would shell out some coin for pictures they like with their horse in it, they seem to in general have no limit of the amount they will spend to get and show their winning horse. I guess it would be the same if you bought NFL or NBA players, I'm sure some NBA players wouldn't mind to be bought right now.

 

[Sonoma]

I like the idea of taking the photo from a higher angle, but this was a small track outside of Indianapolis and there were no bleachers. There was really no where to go to get higher.

As for the owners buying photos, the track had two professional photographers there taking pictures of everything. It was a neat experience anyway!

Thanks for the comments.

 

[KenC]

It works well as is, but if you want to make the buildings recede more, you could do a little selective darkening or even some selective blurring. The latter is tricky however, because it can more easily look fake.

 

[KmH]

Is it harder on the horses making them run uphill?

Quick and dirty I leveled the photo, added a 1/2 stop of foreground exposure, cleaned up the background some, and boosted local contrast in the foreground.

 

[Sonoma]

WOW, that's fantastic! Can you give me more details on how you cleaned up the background. It looks far better.

The entire picture looks better really.

Thanks
Gary

 

[shootermcgavin]

^^^^ That looks loads better. I'm glad you posted I think it would be fun to shoot a horse race sometime never gave it thought before this.

 

[TenaciousTins]

Did you soften the picture in PP? If so, I don't think it was needed. Part of the thrill of horse pictures for me is seeing the sheer muscle these guys have. I like the edit with the background cleaned up, nice job! Overall nice pic!

I think if you have the shutter speed fast enough, you'll catch the motion and blur the background a bit, but then again you might not necessarily get the feel of the motion. I did this at a Standardbred track once and this is what I got with the lowest f-stop I could get, which for that was probably 5.6 and shutter speed was up in the 1000-2500 range. It was a really really bright day and that was at the beginning of my camera ownership and I only had my 18-55mm lens so that's why they are a bit over exposed.

 

[photo guy]

I like the photo just as it is. To me it show a good action shot

 

[JKF159]

I think it is a pretty good photo the way it is. I like the slight hoof blur. It adds that sense of motion but I agree that is a personal thing. I think darkening the background might be worth a try but not too much. It really is not a bad photo as is. Given that you had to shoot from where you were I think you did a good job. There is no doubt what the subject is, the exposure and composition are good and the background is not really that distracting. Looks like a horse race at the track to me.

 

[Sonoma]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I think I will go back to the original RAW file and tinker with this some more.

Thanks again.

 

[KmH]

WOW, that's fantastic! Can you give me more details on how you cleaned up the background. It looks far better.....

I used the Clone tool in Photoshop CS5.

 

[Derrel]

I wish there were MUCH more blurring...to create a really fluid, motion-filled, impressionistic rendering of the horses and the jockeys...I'm thinking something around 1/6 second or so. It's always tough when there are strong man-made shapes painted bright colors at sporting venues...poles, fences, entry barriers, etc,etc...you do what you can!