Horse Jump -two crops

[caleb]

shot with a Nikon D60 and Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 lens.

First photo is slightly cropped and seems "busy" to me.

Second photo is cropped fairly tight and seems to not show enough of the "where the horse is going next" action to me.

This was my first time shooting real action like this and I'm pretty pleased, learned a lot though. Fortunately for me, there was a commercial photographer there who talked with me during down times and gave me a lot of advice/general talk. I shot in shutter priority mode, but half the ring was shaded and I never adjusted and therefore I feel like my exposure was a bit off for different sides of the ring. Additionally, I start shooting earlier in the day and by the afternoon (when this was taken), the sun had changed enough to overexpose my photos like this . I never look at my screen or otherwise chimp and shots like this make me regret it.

Regarding editing, I'm fairly sure all I've done is sharpen it, which looks very off that this resolution. In any case, I'm open to a lot of suggestions regarding edits in photoshop.

[Frog]

I like how you managed to freeze the action.
The light and surroundings were quite difficult to say the least. That being said I do like the cropped version better and do not think there is too little to show where the horse is going.
I don't think they are over exposed...just showing what the light was at that time.

[caleb]

overexposure is the bane of my life

any tips/etc to prevent this while shooting in shutter priority? would shooting these shots in RAW help? my main pet peeves from this show was the light colored horse's manes would wash out beyond repair

[shootme]

I now always shoot in raw and jpg, if I need to touch up a shot I use the raw. You need a decent size SD card though if you're going to be shooting a lot. You could always try increasing ISO in harsh light conditions at the risk though of adding noise, particularly if you need to crop in a lot. Nice shot though very sharp. Play around with manual for these and save the settings, manual can work wonders. S

[Frog]

On my camera,(nikon d80), the shutter speed can still be adjusted over what the camera picks in aperture priority, so you could also try using a faster shutter speed which would let in less light and still freeze your action.
Somebody correct me if I'm off base.

[armywife1984]

Great shots. They look perfect too me, except for the blurry fence in the forground. It doesnt look over exposed to me. I dont like the shadow across the riders face but it doesnt detract from the overall photo either. Great Job

[caleb]

I had a lot of "lessons learned" from shooting my first horse show/action... most of them due to the shooting conditions (being behind fences/at certain areas of the ring)

-watch foreground objects for blocking & blurring... also pick better backgrounds
-focus correctly (this is funny and hard and didn't seem intuitive at the time, but I was told by another photographer there the easiest/best thing to do is prefocus on the next jump, instead of trying to focus on the rider as they are coming up to a jump)
-change to programmed auto for portraits/slow moving
-check after first set for lighting, motion blur, & focus issues
-choose ~3 jumps in a similar location instead of trying to shoot all of them. Ideally, aim for some perfectly perpendicular and head-on.

[jetrim]

caleb,
I'm not sure about the D-60 as I've never used one, but my S-2 is built on a D-100 frame, so I don't imagine they're too disimilar. The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't need to look at the screen as there should be an exposure meter somewhere along the bottom of the viewfinder (looks like: <-----|----+>) and one or two adjustment wheels on the shutter side of the body to adjust the shutter speed with your forefinger or thumb "on the fly" so the marker ends up in the center of the meter. A shot like this, where you are pretty sure the horses mane is going to wreak havoc on the exposure, is probably best shot in "center weighted" mode as you may have a hard time with keeping the spot on the white part of the moving horse, and "matrix mode" ain't going to get the job done due to the range of color/light.

Shootme mentioned manual mode, and I don't want to hijack the thread but he is not the first to say it, and I would really like to understand the specific advantage of manual mode. Generally, I look at the subject and decide what the priority is speed or DoF and then select aperature or shutter priority, watch the meter and adjust accordingly. How specifically is this less effective? Perhaps it's worth starting a new thread in the Help section to address this...

[caleb]

thank you very much, i had read this but through never using it i forgot it. very good tip