I got to go photograph two beautiful stallions yesterday, a cremello Lusitano and a black Andalusian. I got there about 5 so I could shoot the black in action and then the cremello in action until the light got low enough to do the "golden light" shots. It was really fun and I learn so much each time I go and experiment on things like this. I have 4 more shoots this week (polo, andalusians and friesians) and more next month and into october. I will be going through stallion photo shoot withdrawel when winter hits! But I'm really looking forward to painting horses all winter.

Dee Dee,
as usual, these are lovely images. I love both of the ones of the Andalusian. They'll make great images for your paintings.

As for the Lusitano, those eyes are awesome. But I like the first and the fifth image best. Gorgeous horses and very nice images of them.

Jim

They are beautiful photos, with the third being my favorite. The light and poses are wonderful, but, I wish they were done at a larger aperture to have separated the horse from the background.

I was trying to put my finger on these lovely done images as to what was bothering me and that was it.

Thanks Jim and Julie.

I agree about the dof, I am not good enough at it yet I guess to be able to control that in all lighting. (also some of these are cropped a bit). But I'd like to learn becuase it would have looked a lot better.

It's easy if the subject is still and up close but these stallions were constantly moving (even in the two standing shots, I just got lucky to catch him still for a moment) and going in and out of shadows. I always shoot Tv with action because I want to make sure I stop action. And when I've tried shooting Av with a shallow DOF, I got a lot of OOF heads and nice sharp butts (with action shots). So I am afraid to try it at a shoot like this.

I know I should shoot manual but again when it's a lot of action and change of light during a burst of 8 fps, I don't always have time to fiddle with the settings. I need more practice I think before I'd have the confidence to do it on a "real" shoot.

What do you guys shoot for action like this, always manual?

The best way to stop action and make sure you get the highest shutter speed while getting *proper* exposure is aperture priority. I rarely shoot anything but aperture priority. In and out of shadows is too tough to manually move things at a fast speed(at least for me)

I think the only time I have shot shutter priority is when I needed a slow shutter speed panning.

Open up your lens wide open and you will always have the fastest shutter speed for that ISO. If your shutter speed is too low, bump your ISO until it is as fast as you like

I have never had as good of luck with shooting Av as I do Tv. When I shoot AV, if I have it at wide aperture, and the light is nice and bright, it puts my shutter speed upwards to 1/8000. And when it gets that high, the image actually turns out way too dark even though there is plenty of light. (It took me weeks to figure out the problem, I had posted examples of several boards until someone finally figured it out I believe I posted it here as well). I haven't had that problem with the 20D because the SS doesn't go that high, but with the MKII it always happens, on bright days with wide aperture when shooting AV. I have also had more consistant exposures on the images using TV than using AV.

Another reason I use TV is at times I'd rather have a slightly too dark image and have stopped action, then I can lighten it in photoshop, if using AV I might have a better exposure right out of the camera but blur that can't be corrected.

I wonder if the difference might partly be because I live where it is often cloudy so the ss is more of an issue...I would prefer shooting AV so I can control the exposure but maybe I am still not quite getting something as I get more keepers (over 90%) using TV and not that many using AV (when the light is either variable or low. I do get at least that many keepers with AV if the light is brighter and consistant but then I try to shoot around f/8 for the lens sweet spot and to not have the shutter speed super high to where it creates those dark images)

Julie, I just found my post here that has a link to some images that illustrate the dark images at a higher shutter speed.

http://www.nwpphotoforum.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=6794&an=0&page=2#6794

I tested this on Hallie one day in the back yard, it was a sunny day and I shot at f/8, up to f/2.8. The wider the aperture got, the faster the shutter speed and as the shutter speed got faster, each image got darker and darker until at 2.8 it was almost black. I am still not sure why that happens as it makes no sense but I have since been leery to shoot AV for action, I only use it now for portrait stuff. I'd still love to know why this happens though and if I can correct it so I could shoot AV for action too.

And here is another. You will see that the ISO and the exposure stays the same but as the shutter speed goes up, the image gets progressively darker.

http://www.deedeemurry.com/temporaries/exposure_beauty.htm

What metering to you have it on? My guess is it got darker in the frames because it metered on the white wall. If you look at the wall, it is almost overexposed in the first shot and as the shutter speed went up, the wall became exposed more properly

You could combat this by using centerweighted or spot metering, but, then again, it all depends on where your camera finds the "spot" to meter off of if you move.

I just do not use shutter priority because it ruins any creative effect I might decide on. If they are a bit dark, you can pull that up in PS. I do worry about highlights because once those are lost, they are gone.

I have run into problems with scenes like the german shepherd one. Those are the sort of things I use manual with. I often do so at horse shows because the meter will pick up the dark dense trees and overexpose the rails, or pick up the rails and underexpose everything else.

I always shoot with spot metering because the subject is the most important for me since I mainly shoot to paint from and will be putting in a different background anyway. I was panning with this dog as she was running and jumping, the images are cropped.

This shepherd is just one example, I couldn't find my images of Hallie I tested this on, but it was a bright day, Hallie is of course dark and was against a neutral background (lawn). So it was metering off her dark body since I use spot metering. So if anything the background should have been a little too bright as it was metering off her black. But it wasn't, it was way too dark.

I took several shots, each time opening it up one more stop. The wider the aperture got, the darker the image got. I still don't understand that, I would think it would have gotten brighter. I was told it was because my shutter speed got so high in the bright conditions that it caused the image to go too dark. But that doesn't make sense to me. So it isn't from what it is metering on as I've tested it on a static scene. By the time I shot Hallie at 2.8, the image was almost black and this was on a bright sunny day, but the ss at that point was up to 1/8000.

I'm not quite following your idea on using aperture priority going a bit dark, aperture priority would first lower the shutter speed so it shouldn't go too dark (unless it was very low light and then it would be dark and blurry both). The reason I have been using shutter priority is because I would rather stop action if there isn't enough light for both that and good exposure, that way if it's too dark I can lighten it in PS and still have frozen the action. If I used aperture priority, it would be exposed correctly out of camera but there would also be some blur which I can't correct.

I agree about being able to be more creative with aperture priority, that is why I am frustrated with it. I have posted this problem on several boards and not gotten a plausible answer so I have to resort to using shutter priority. I do use aperture priority on things that aren't moving. I can't use manual with situations like the german shepherd because like I mentioned before, things are happening too fast and I would not be able to fiddle with the manual, i.e., if the 8 frames per second images of this jump go from correctly exposed to dark, 8 times in one second so I could not have changed settings during that one second that fast.

I have had no problems with the exposures using shutter priority but it does not let me blur out the backgrounds for the action shots and sometimes I don't have time to change to aperture priority when the horse stops because I am shooting like crazy and the horse stops and starts again and there is no time to switch. It's not a problem if it's a posed, still shot then aperture priority works fine.

I am probably not making any sense but I'd like to figure this out although I did get a ton of suggestions on several forums and it was never figured out. I really don't think there is anything "wrong" with my camera it may be something I just am not getting yet but if so I dont have a clue what that is.