First Dressage / Show Jumping Comp - Any Advice?

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lensworx

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Hi all,

A local equine centre has given me the go ahead to shoot their competitions once the students come back from summer holidays. They hold them every weekend and are a mixture of dressage and show jumping.
They have never had a photographer present and jumped at the chance when I mentioned it to them.

This is my first real chance at getting into a particular line of photography which is BIG around here as well as getting some MAJOR coverage of my work.

can anyone give me any advice?

most of the competition is indoors and with poor lighting and of course I will not be using a flash for obvious reasons, will the kit ive got at the moment be good enough?

Any comments, Suggestions and advice would be great

thank you all in advance

Mark
 
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Indoor arenas are almost always poorly lit. I shoot a lot of equine stuff both indoors and out. You're right in discounting flash. It puts the riders off. You'll need fast glass. Your camera needs to handle high ISO pretty well.
I moved from Canon to the Nikon D700 because of the amount of indoor stuff I shoot.
You don't mention what lenses you have.
Probably get away with a standard zoom with f2.8 for Show Jumping if you're in the ring. For Dressage you should be OK with it also as you'll be just outside the arena.
You'll get away with shutter of 1/250th. Not ideal but do-able.
Indoor is a flippin nightmare most places !

Good luck, position yourself carefully for inside the Show Jumping ring and keep out of the way !
 
Natalie_B said:
Get yourself a 50mm f1.4. i use mine for indoor shows
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That's exactly what I used when I had a 7D ! Gave OK results, frequently used it at f1.8-f2. Just found the fixed length a bit too limiting in some of the big indoor arenas. It was when I considered buying the 24-70 2.8 that I made the Switch to the other side....but that's another story...
 
2p
the lighting colours will be a bitch........shoot RAW..?
 
Yardbent said:
2p
the lighting colours will be a bitch........shoot RAW..?
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Not a bad idea, but if you print onsite I've found it helps to have smaller file sizes. Custom White balance and medium size jpeg's work for me. My assistant can manage the sales and printing but not any editing !
 
youll need at least a 70-200mm f2.8, a 50mm isnt really going to help too much when theyre at the long end of the arena. a 450D will not be good enough for indoor arena in my opinion. even with those poxy orange floodlights on an overcast day you can be shooting at ISO3200 for example.
 
Just to reiterate Neil's point, I was using a 70-200 at Addington (one of the best lit indoor arenas about IMHO) last week and was shooting at f2.8, ISO1600 with shutter speeds of 1/160th. That was just showing, for jumping you'd want near enough twice that shutter speed.

Also, not only with a 50mm will you not have the required reach at the larger arenas, the depth of field at those very large apertures will make it extremely difficult to nail the focus.
 
trevorbray said:
Sparsholt ? One of the 'lighter' arenas. Did a show jumping gig there with the 7D and 50mm. Really hard work !
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yup sparsholt.. its nice and "light" when the sun is out but youre still shooting at 1600 and f2.8 normally. but when that sun goes in you might as well be shooting at night lol

showjumping.. BSJA?
 
neil_g said:
yup sparsholt.. its nice and "light" when the sun is out but youre still shooting at 1600 and f2.8 normally. but when that sun goes in you might as well be shooting at night lol

showjumping.. BSJA?
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That's right Neil.
 
I'm afraid a 450D won't really cut the mustard indoors for showjumping at all as the ISO will need to be very high and anything above ISO 500 on a 450D is very noticeable. Unless you have an 85 f1.2? :)
Regards lenses, I use an 85 f1.8, a 135 f2 and a 70-200 f2.8 for very bright days. All are on a 1DMkIII so I use up to ISO 3200 when I have to as some arenas are very badly lit especially in winter when the ambient is non existent.

You may get away with the dressage as the shutter speed required would be lower so if you have any of the lenses above then the 450D may be ok but you are going to have awful problems with focusing also on a horse in low light with it.

Are you only doing this for a bit of fun or are you intending on trying to sell photos? If you are selling them then to be fair you need to have professional equipment to do a professional job. A 450D for this is the equivalent of a painter turning up to paint your house with kids paint brushes. It'll do the job but very badly.

You'll need at minimum a 40D and a 70-200 f2.8 to have any chance of getting consistent professional results.
 
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Thanks for the replies everyone.
I am only just starting out so I am still gathering equipment.

as far as lens's go, Ive just got a new sigma 24-70 f/2.8. I already have a Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 LD Di macro (soon to be replaced) but I know this is not going to be any good for this type of low light stuff.

I am going to take a recky of the place Friday so I can get a good idea of the lighting levels then. I have also been told today of a few outdoor events that will be taking place at another location soon, this does not get any coverage either so I will be making a phone call or taking a visit there as well.
as far as the 450D is concerned, I am going to use this at the moment but do have my eye on a second hand 5D at right money, If it looks like this is going to take off then I will be investing :D

I always shoot RAW anyway so that's one less thing to have to worry about.

thanks for the comments and input everyone, I will post and update once I have taken a trip there on Friday.

mark
 
Be sure when you go for a look to go at the same kind of day you'll be shooting. There's a big arena by me that is great to shoot in during the summer because it has sky-lights as well as the lights so you get a load of daylight in and this helps dramatically.

If it's going to be at night then increase your chances for the jumping by picking a jump(s) directly under one of the lights and position yourself accordingly.

For print, you will get away with a slightly higher iso as it's only really the on-screen 100% pixel-peepers that would notice the extra noise, but horsey people are more concerned if their horse looks good and has it's ears forward.

One of the most difficult parts is making low-level dressage look good. If you have hours of this, take some match-sticks for your eyes as it will be majorly dull. <yawn>
Any pictures where the horse has it's weight on the front legs, or the horses ears are back can instantly be ditched as they won't want them.

HTH.

Bob
 
MrFigjam said:
One of the most difficult parts is making low-level dressage look good.
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Hell yeah !!!
"excuse me, but why do all the photos only show my horse when her head is up?" erm, thats beacuse she never went into a flippin outline !!!

I know when to take the shots to make them look their best but with some its nigh on impossible :bonk:
 
Natalie_B said:
Hell yeah !!!
"excuse me, but why do all the photos only show my horse when her head is up?" erm, thats beacuse she never went into a flippin outline !!!
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ha, one woman had the cheek to call us amatures as we didnt have a "nice" shot of her daughter..

:thinking:

I know when to take the shots to make them look their best but with some its nigh on impossible :bonk:
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some horses and riders are just a delight to shoot, and really makes the day worth while.. but that doesnt usually happen until you hit elementary or medium tests.
 
Thanks for all the comments and feedback.

I took a quick recky of the place today. The lighting is not the best but I think I can work with it. There are plenty of places to shoot from and get a little closer if required.

There are a number of skylights that on a GOOD day will make for much better lighting but today was really overcast and dull. there are also a number of lights that did help a little but nothing to scream home about.
I did not have as much time as I would have liked but did manage to get a few shots off to see just what I was up against.

equine-test1.jpg


This is the result with only a slight correction in adobe RAW, I will be batch editing in Light-room so doing 50 - 100 should not be too much work.
It looks like that unless its a bright day that Im going to be forced to use ISO 800, I managed to get shutter speeds of around 200@f/2.8 so im going to try the first of each competition and see how it goes. I know that ISO 1600 would give me enough light but as it has already been said, the noise is going to be an issue, how noticeable will this be on prints no larger than 10x8?

I also got a chance to speak to the manageress and she is more than happy to pass out my details and for me to put any posters and flyers up around the show yard and stables aswell :thumbs:

any more input and advice would be great.

thanks in advance

Mark
 
Looks good, but remember that in twilight you'll need to be 2-3 stops faster. This will mean regularly needing ISO of 3200+. Winter days when there is no ambient will be worse.
Get saving for a new more capable body.
There is no easy way to get saleable shots in gloomy conditions.
 
200 will be too slow I'm my opinion. Personally I shoot 640@f2.8@ISO1600.. also is expect to have at the very least 1000 shots from a full day event per camera, manually correcting those will be an arse..
 
Got my first equine show tomorrow! Outdoors but light not looking good, D90 with 70 - 300vr on auto ISO aiming for 500th min, S5pro with 16-85 auto ISO and 125th min for the slower portrait type stuff....

50mm 1.8 in reserve, and 90 f2.8 tamron.

I find prefocussing most effective on the jumps and dont use motordrive as I end up deleting loads of pointless shots, you onlt need the one! Timing isnt too hard after a bit of practice. I concentrate on just 2 jumps that can take from one position, one early in the round, one at the end - gives me a chance to prepare.

Did an indoor arena early in the year - nightmare with such poor light........was up to 3200 ISO on the Tamron 2.8 and still only got 320th, which wasnt quite enough....

Not sure there's much to be made at these events currently tomorrow will prove one way or the other!
 
Dave Pickett said:
Not sure there's much to be made at these events currently tomorrow will prove one way or the other!
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There can be very good days and unfortunately some very bad days. Happily the good outweigh the bad at the moment!

The more options you give the rider (at least 3 fences, 1 in motion and a headhot) the better chances you have of a sale. Apart from prints, you can also sell digital files on the day. This is getting more popular due to facebook and whatnot. Stick all their shots from the day onto a CD for £40. Much better for them than 3 or 4 prints and it costs you very little.
 
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ksapwaff said:
The more options you give the rider (at least 3 fences, 1 in motion and a headhot) the better chances you have of a sale.
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I'd echo that 100%, and even stretch to either 4 or 5 fences if you can (based on one frame per fence). All it takes is a badly timed approach or the horse not tucking up and you are unlikely to make a sale. Another tip is to get a reference shot as the combination either enters or leaves the ring (the latter is often easier) so that you have a clear view of their competitor number for file naming. It's a hell of a lot easier than just listing the photographs by time of entry.
 
I used to just take one shot for jumping, until I started selling lots of landing shots... I still start my burst at the optimum point, back feet just about to or just having left the ground, but keep it pinned for another one or 2 shots, depends on the height.

I have a 50D and 70-200 2.8 IS and consider that the bare minimum. I still end up at f2.8, ISO3200 and 1/200th of a second during the evening jumping. I'd say 2/3rds are keepers with those settings.

As far as noise goes, whatever you do DO NOT UNDEREXPOSE if you're at 3200. Random noise is fine, and can even look quite pleasant in prints once the colour noise is taken out (I tend to leave the luminance) but if you start pushing the exposure the chip 'reading streaks' (sure there's a propper name) will start becoming visible, and they are f.... ugly!

edit: +1 for walk and trot difficulties...
 
neil_g said:
Seriously you name each file by rider? Out of interest why? Wouldn't bother personally especially on larger events, a lot don't wear a number anyway
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I'll normally do for dressage, but not showjumping... But showjumping there are 10 shots max per competitor, dressage 30-50, is why I do it.
 
neil_g said:
Seriously you name each file by rider? Out of interest why? Wouldn't bother personally especially on larger events, a lot don't wear a number anyway
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I don't at the moment.

I'm working out a methodology for doing BE stuff for our own event, and grouping by competitor for after event sales (rather than on site) seems like the easiest method. I'm more than happy to be proved wrong though!
 
DemiLion said:
I don't at the moment.

I'm working out a methodology for doing BE stuff for our own event, and grouping by competitor for after event sales (rather than on site) seems like the easiest method. I'm more than happy to be proved wrong though!
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Just depends on the number of competitors:number of shots ratio for me.
 
We do online sales with albums split by event and arena only. Shots se the loaded in in time order. Works find for us.

Regarding jumping don't prefocus you're asking for trouble when they don't jump where you're expecting.

Ai servo and move focus to *. You shouldn't need large fps or to take more than 2 shots per jump anything else is a waste of memory.
 
neil_g said:
We do online sales with albums split by event and arena only. Shots se the loaded in in time order. Works find for us.

Regarding jumping don't prefocus you're asking for trouble when they don't jump where you're expecting.

Ai servo and move focus to *. You shouldn't need large fps or to take more than 2 shots per jump anything else is a waste of memory.
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I absolutely understand your point regarding SJ and Dressage, I just think that for Eventing it looks better if the SJ and XC and both in the same album; if nothing else at least they should all be lumped into the same class together! Having said that I certainly wouldn't bother going so far as to match names to entry number like some people seem to- that really is a shed load of work! :D

On the prefocusing point, I'm with you all the way, and agree that more than two per fence is a waste even at 8fps. (Yup I realise that the comment was for someone else!)

The use of back button focusing makes a huge difference, to the extent that I use * with the centre AF point and AF-On with a registered one two points higher so its easier to quickly switch what I want to be the main point of focus.
 
neil_g said:
Regarding jumping don't prefocus you're asking for trouble when they don't jump where you're expecting.
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I don't really understand what you mean here?

I normally have the entire fence included in the frame so where else are they going to go?
I use back button focus on the fence and fire the shutter when the rider is in the correct position over the fence.
I find you can miss a lot of shots especially in tight arenas where there are fences in your line of sight as the rider approaches the fence you are shooting and this sometimes causes missed AF.
I suppose it's horses for courses really and whatever people find easiest. :)
 
ksapwaff said:
I don't really understand what you mean here?

I normally have the entire fence included in the frame so where else are they going to go?
I use back button focus on the fence and fire the shutter when the rider is in the correct position over the fence.
I find you can miss a lot of shots especially in tight arenas where there are fences in your line of sight as the rider approaches the fence you are shooting and this sometimes causes missed AF.
I suppose it's horses for courses really and whatever people find easiest. :)
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okay so ideally to get anice bokeh to blur out the horrid backgrounds a lot of venues have so you should be shooting with a large aperture. Now day the rider is in the jumpoff so is cutting corners all over the place and you've prefocused for the center of the jump. If that rider is 1 or 2 meters away from where you've prefocused at 200/300mm you'll end up with a soft shot.
 
Ah ok. You do get the odd soft one with this technique but the rider will still have another 5 or 6 shots to pick from. Depending on the positioning of the fence then I will either track focus or pre focus. Seems to work for me at the moment
 
Thanks again for all the replies.

I am lucky about this particular competition as it is held every weekend at the same place as I work (The Equine Centre is part of the University where I work).

I have spoken to the manageress again and she has said that there are a number of students that would be more than willing for me to photograph whilst they are practicing to get some experience and feedback.

I might very well hold off on the competitions then until I can get a body that will cope better with the High ISO required, I really want to do this right.

would a 1DMII or a 1DMII be right for the job? what options do I have as far as bodies go? the Sigma lens I have just got is a full frame lens so I can go with either a full frame or a APS-C body.

thanks again in advance

Mark
 
I'd look for a 1D3. You'll need the best low light camera you can afford. Try and find one with low shutter count or if you can find a new one lurking somewhere get that. You're gonna be taking a lot of shots.
Practising is a very good idea. Good luck with it. To maximise sales remember that on the day printing is the way to go. Hopefully you have someone to take orders and print for you.
 
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