Andalusian Stallion

Here are a few from the last go. The lighting was a big challenge for me, gorgeous grounds but mostly shade with dappled sunlight to full sunlight. So as he was galloping around he was going in and out of the bright and dark lighting. I was blowing some highlights and getting dark/noise/bit of blur a lot but enough keepers that I didn't lose face too badly. I kept wondering though if there was more I could have done, and what kind of advice you guys might have for this kind of situation?

I was mainly shooting shutter priority because again, stopping action was most important and I'd rather lighten up a darker image on a light colored horse like this (although I really hate how it looks) than to have the blur. I was shooting at ISO 640 and sometimes 800.

I made some mistakes but also learned a lot! The owner asked for some shots of her and the stallion too, so I have been getting some people practice. But I could have done better on the lighting, it was shady but sunny out so I should have gotten good still shots but I was very happy with most of the posed ones.

I don't mind the blown highlights much in these but I'll put in an example of a bad one, with the owner in the last pic here, where I am sure I should have done something different to get a better shot??

The most painful part of the day was when he came bursting out of the trees full bore, and LEAPED over a big log...I'll never forget the sound of his galloping hooves and then silence as he was airborn, long mane flying it was gorgeous...and I missed the shot!!! You couldn't see where he was half the time so I didn't see or hear him coming until it was too late and we couldn't get him interested in jumping it a second time.

Not much you can do with dappled light. You just pretend it is creative rim lighting.

These are beautiful, but, I still don't understand why you would get blurry photos with aperture priority. If you are shooting at a large aperture, you are going to have max shutter speed. Just pay attention to what the shutter speed is doing and bump the ISO accordingly.

I do not get blurry photos on aperture priority and that is shooting whippets running at 40mph or horses over fences. I just make sure that my ISO is high enough to keep things at 1/800th or faster. In bright sun, that is ofter ISO 100

Thanks Julie, I kind of figured as much. I do understand very well, shutter speed and aperture and ISO and how it all works, but this horse was running between really bright to really dark areas (and dappled areas in between) so I chose to expose for the darkest areas since he was running there the majority of the time.

It was too dark even at ISO 800 and f/2.8 to get the shutter speed up as high as I wanted/needed it to be. So I shot in shutter priority as stopping action was more important to me than having a perfectly exposed image. I have no problems in good lighting getting right on exposure and controlling how fast I want the shutter speed, ISO, etc. That is all second nature at this point. This was just a challenging lighting situation with the varied lighting and some times here it was beyond the cameras capabilities this day even with settings maxed out each way. So I think what I got with the action was the best that could be done that day.

It was the still, posed shots that I think I could have done a lot better on and would like to learn more about natural lighting in that case. I learned from this not to use sun dapples especially on a light horse! I thought it might look neat to have his face in the light (like Jim did with the handler and rottie a while back, and I had done it with a Friesian last year and it worked well with the black horse) but it just blew the highlights and if I had exposed for the light, I think the woman, etc would have been too underexposed. So I would like to know the best way to set up that kind of shot, big contrast between the light horse and the woman's black outfit, where to have the sun, what "kind" of shade to set up in (really dark or very light, etc).

In scrutinizing the photos my thoughts would be I should have had all of the horse and woman under the shade with no sun spots, I like the sun behind and to the left of her as it is making a bit of a rim light on her hair. I'm guessing a reflector would have helped then to add details in the shaded side of her and the horse. Does this sound like the best kind of set up in this case?

I would have liked lighting like your shots here

http://www.nwpphotoforum.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=9884&an=0&page=1#9884

Do you remember the situation here, were you in the shade, using a reflector, etc?

I also am wanting to get a diffuser panel to practice with, although we have many long dark months ahead!

I try and shoot about an hour to an hour and a half before sunset. The German shepherd was in full sun, at about about 7:30 pm. The ones with the vets were right after a drizzly rain and was overcast

Yeah, the shade/sun is tough. Especially with a running horse. They are very beautiful photos and I am amazed you were able to get him lying down!!

Ah ok that explains the nice lighting on the two people shots, overcast, not in the shade. They are really lovely! You are the one who made me a big fan of the late day golden light. Unfortunately the place we were at was totally surrounded by tall trees so it would have been complete shade before the golden light hour, so I did learn that this won't work well even with shade this time of day. It was a good experiement though (I will chalk it up as LOL) and will be just fine for painting! I do like to do the best I can with the photos too though. It helps a lot to know what situations there just can't be a lot more done with too, thanks for your help and advice!!

The laying down one, he had just started to roll, his owner ran at him waving her arms and yelling so right after this he leaped up and took off bucking again. He looks like a (hornless) unicorn to me in that shot for some reason....

These are lovely images! I'm no expert but if it were my gig I'd shoot all the person/horse portraits and posed horse portraits with a standard portrait flash/strobe set-up - meaning two lights, one key and one fill in a 3 or 4:1 power ratio. Mixing natural and flash lighting can be tricky but since most of the portrait shots are outside it would be important to do whatever it takes to keep the sun off of the face since that's what produces the overexposed facial areas juxtaposed against very harsh and dark shadows - always a portrait killer.

I may have missed it but I don't think you mentioned what metering mode you're using. Again, I'm no expert but my inclination would be to use spot metering linked to whatever focus point I thought would be most useful given the predominant direction of the action, hoping to get into a rhythm where no matter what else was happening I'd likely have the horse's eye in focus and exposed correctly.

It seemed counter-intuitive to me at first but de-linking exposure and focus (by assigning focus to a convenient button and leaving exposure to a half press of the shutter button) greatly facilitates action shooting. It took me just a few minutes to become convinced of the benefits once I resolved to try it. It's not something one needs in the studio or for static tripod landscape shots, but definitely something to use for all sports and action shots.

Mostly I just wanted to say how much I like your beautiful images above.

Thanks so much for adding your advice Buddy, I learn a lot from these posts!

I have dabbled a little with studio lighting (very little but learning!) so I actually understood most of your terms LOL! I have been wanting to set up my strobes in an arena or my garage and see if I can get some non spooky horses to shoot. I think that would be really fun to try. I couldn't have used the strobes in this particular shoot because I don't have the battery pack, just plug ins for the strobes and wouldn't have been able to carry all the stuff in to this location myself (It was 5 gorgeous acres but you have to cross a long narrow footbridge over a creek, even the horses have to go across the bridge, and it's quite a hike). Plus the horses would tend to spook at the umbrellas. But as I said I would really love to figure out the situation where I could shoot horses with strobes, I am planning with my cousin who has 8 beautiful horses and is usually up for anything.

I use spot metering and I usually don't have any problem with action, in decent light I rarely miss a shot (focus wise), but am curious about de linking exposure and focus (not sure just what that means or how to do it?). I shoot with a MKII and for these kinds of shots, mainly the 70-200 2.8 IS lens.

I do have a 580 EX flash but haven't figured it all out yet, haven't had time to sit down and go thru the manual with it since I rarely need it really, but sounds like it would have been helpful in this situation.

Thanks again for your input I learn from this!

One thing about this shoot that amazes me is the length of leg. You are at a great low angle but that does not seem to raise him up. How tall is he? Lately all the Arab magazines I am seeing so many stallions in very tall flowers, grasses and even cactus! It bugs me since I want to see the lovely legs, but this guy might be interesting in that setting since his volume seems to be large for his leg length. Am I really off?

Dee Dee,
these are lovely but the lighting definitely challenged you. For the posed portraits, I'd use my 580 flash for fill. It would mitigate the dappled shadows and even out the lighting overall.

With the 580, there's not much to figure out. Set it for high-speed synch and let it do the work.

You could use a reflector but you'd need an assistant to make sure it was focusing the light on the subjects. I agree that the studio lights, while they'd help with the lighting, would probably spook the horse.

I love the standing portrait!

Jim

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curious about de linking exposure and focus (not sure just what that means or how to do it.)

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Dee Dee - On your 1D MKII it's custom function 4, setting #1. This will assign auto-focus to the * button. There are many photography forum discussions about this feature. I'll try to dig up a link and send it your way.

Ahhhh... The 1D MKII and 70-200 f2.8 IS lens - definitely my favorite combo! The lens is awesome and the MKII has an uncanny (legendary even) ability to get that shot when the pressure is on, there is no time and chaos reigns.