Spruce Meadows

[mwcfarms]

I happened to be in the right place, right time yesterday. Went to Spruce Meadows to take the kids to the park with my friend. She lives 3 minutes away and my childhood hero Ian miller happened to be competing. After I got over my childish glee I decided to try and take some pictures. This is my first attempt at trying to photograph moving subjects. Would love some feedback.

I would love to have been able to get more of the second shot in focus. Any tips of shooting events like this is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Derrel]

Your shutter speeds are just on the margin on both of these. In the second shot you can see that the horse's rear hooves are showing motion blurring, since they are moving the fastest of anything in the picture. It appears that you are swinging the camera along with the horse, tracking its movements virtually perfectly,and that is keeping the main body of the horse sharp, but the backgrounds are showing the camera's panning movement, which gives a subtle sense of movement to non-moving objects; that subtle sense of movement can be perceived as blurriness or whatever, and might make some people feel a bit dizzy when looking at this type of picture for a long time.

On the second photo, you have most everything in focus, but the panning of the camerta that keeps the horse sharp is making the signage look blurred. We can see this panning blurring most on the sign that says Duncan Rxxxx or whatever--that's blurred, but the horse is kept mostly sharp.

 

[mwcfarms]

I know and I wish I could fix that. I haven't done anything before with shutter speeds. I suppose I better read the Understand Shutterspeed book I bought by Peterson. I was having such a hard time trying to keep horse/rider sharp while they were in the motion of jumping. Going to go back and try again if I can. Would a slower shutter speed have brought more of the sign and background etc in focus? Most likely will need to bring my tripod then too. Thanks for the comments Derrel. Appreciate it very much.

 

[Moe]

Looks really good to me, especially for what I assume was the kit lens. Other than upgrading the lens, my only suggestion would be to up the ISO to at least 800 (you used 200) so that you could get a faster shutter speed. That is, if you want it to be completely blur-free. I happen to like a bit of motion blur, as long as the subject is in focus (which you did well). That said, I saw some shots the other day on dpreview that are amazing. Get your credit card ready!

Why I love the Nikon 200f2.... [Page 1]: Nikon SLR Lens Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

 

[Moe]

Ok, I missed your reply right before my post (you wrote it while I was posting). You need a faster shutter speed. A slower shutter speed and tripod would make the sign in focus, but the horse super blurry. The shutter speeds in that link are like 1/4000! You can do that when the aperture is f2.

 

[mwcfarms]

Ok, I missed your reply right before my post (you wrote it while I was posting). You need a faster shutter speed. A slower shutter speed and tripod would make the sign in focus, but the horse super blurry. The shutter speeds in that link are like 1/4000! You can do that when the aperture is f2.

Those pics are yes tack sharp. Very nice. Thanks for the link. Yes now that I sit and think about my question it makes sense. :blushing: Thanks for the link. Yes that lens is lovely but way out of my price range lol.

 

[Moe]

Yeah, it's out of most people's price range. There was a comment in that thread that said they should ban pics from that lens on internet forums .