Early morning Track-work

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day all

We're currently in West Wyalong running a weekend workshop - and staying out at the showgrounds
Each morning at around 5:30am we've been awoken by the 'soft-clatter' of horse hooves - as the local harness-racing fellas bring out pairs of horses for their morning workout
They seem to do 1/2-dozen laps going clockwise, have a short rest, then do 1/2-dozen laps going anti-clockwise

This morning was cold & dreary & with a light misty rain falling - just enough moisture to settle on the clothes and keep me wiping drops off the camera lens

I wanted to get the impression of speed - so dropped the ISO to minimum of iso-100, played with shutter speeds between 1/25s & 1/50s - with burst at 3fps to get some separation between each image

1-


2-


3-


4-



Hope you enjoy 'em ~ as always, comments welcome
Phil

[Isac]

I like the effect Phil - well done to be out in the rain. Your speed technique works well. I think even a sharp image of the horses and rider with a really blurred background will still give the image the speed look. No.2 for me, nice focus on the gg's with a good blurred background.

[Gaz]

I reckon you've nailed it with 2 & 3 keeping the horses heads in focus with less than ideal conditions.
If I was forced to pick I'd have to go for No.3...plenty of room on the R/hand side for horse and driver to move into and great sense of speed.

Cheers

[sejac]

Nice work Phil. #2 is the winner for me. The focus is on the heads of the horses, and the feet, wheels and background are nicely blurred. The heads are nicely placed in the photo from a compositional point of view too.

1/25 to 1/50 is pretty slow. Tempted to try 1/60 to 1/80 perhaps?

And what about panning as they go past in front of you? Shooting as you have when they are just in front of your position means you can't really pan effectively.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day all

Thx for the comments above
Charles - maybe I haven't made it 100% clear in the OP ... but camera panning was in operation all the time ~ along with the slow shutter speeds

Each sequence of images - from the approach some 50-60metres down the track till the horses crossed in front of me to a bit beyond that point only took about 3 seconds - and in that time I endeed up with a dozen or so images. Most were 'double-blurred' from both horse-vertical movement + horse-horizontal movement. Mostly the only clear part of an image was the rider in the wheeled sulky

Here's the next image in the sequence - showing lots of panning blur



Hope this explanation is okay
Phil

[loose cannon]

Great series Phil!

I actually like the last image posted the most, nothing wrong with the others to my eye btw. Me like.

Real drama in that image created by the blur and it works a treat. I like that the frame from the buggy is sharp, that just seems to kinda anchor the image if you know what I mean.

[Phoenix]

Like what you have done Phil.. a bit more interesting than your regular horse and track shot.
Very tricky to get focus accurate when something is coming at you.. I know it messes with my autofocus.
I assume it's rain on the lens that made number one look so smeary.
I like two, the composition and sharpness on the horses is good while the speed effect is evident.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

Like what you have done Phil.. a bit more interesting than your regular horse and track shot.
Very tricky to get focus accurate when something is coming at you.. I know it messes with my autofocus.
I assume it's rain on the lens that made number one look so smeary.
I like two, the composition and sharpness on the horses is good while the speed effect is evident.

Yeah Jo ... in the 3-4 seconds between starting a shoot and the horse crossing in front of the camera, the lens would end up with a dozen or more tiny splots of mist across the front element. I would then clean it off and hold the lens in my hand till the horses had come all around the track circuit all over again

Phil