But I was going through some of my photos that I have taken since I have bought my DSLR and was looking at my first attempts at a sporting event, The Fairhill International Festival, which is 4 days of equestrian events and dog agility.
Some of the photos turned out great, others turned out ok, and more of them turned out not so great.
Shooting an event like this was hard not because of the timing but because every horse and rider was different, they didn't jump the same heights, so it made for framing a shot difficult. Ok I'll admit it some of the shots I just got plain lucky. but as I go back and look at the photos I took, I realize the things that I would have done different.
While I was shooting in shutter priority, I should have not used spot focusing, but used a different focus. I should have upped my shutter speed to get a better stop action on some of my photos. And lastly I was shooting at a high ISO, which caused a lot of graininess in my photos.
Even close range photos that I took some turned out really great, others not so great because of the high ISO speed.
I am finding that in shooting birds of prey, the advice of shooting in shutter priority works if the bird isn't flying but up in the nest, and shooting with my aperture at a setting of about f8-9. But with that being said if I am trying to shoot a bird in flight, I need to switch to shutter priority and up my shutter speed.
I am not one who likes the tips of the wings to be blurred, I want the stop action when in flight. I would like the artistic in a different shot. As I was looking at photos, I realized that my exposure time at 1/160th of a second was to slow, I probably have been shooting at 1/250th or higher exposure to get the stop action. At least that's what I would try today.
And again I would drop my ISO, there is no reason, and I don't know why or how I was shooting at 3200 ISO. Yeap that's what my ISO was set at. I think the max I use now is 1250, but most times I use 800 to 1000 settings. And in doing so my results have started to improve.
I have made the rookie mistake of switching to P, and most shots that I have taken in 'P' mode have been average to OK, not great, not impressive, some were very good, but more times than not I would look at a photo in 4x6 to 5x7 mode and like it, and when I looked at it full size, I wanted to cry......didn't like the photos at all.
This is a photo of a falcon. My goal was to stop the action of the wings, and capture her with her wings partially spread.
But with a 3200 ISO when looking at this image full size, the wings are very blurred, and you can see the motion blur on the photo here, but worse full size, and the grainess in the face is much much more evident.
So what I would do with this photo, change the focal point so that everything in the photo is focused on, make the exposure time faster, and again drop my ISO.
I have kept almost all of my photos so that I can go back look at them, and learn from them, look at them to know what I could have and should have done differently. Its an important step as a photographer. With the camera set in shutter priority, it would choose the aperture setting. If I find the aperture still to harsh, as this was taken on a day that was hot and sunny, even for October, I would switch to manual knowing what I was shooting at as far as exposure setting it at least 1/250th of a second, and then probably setting my aperture at a setting that would be more suitable to the lighting and weather conditions around me.
Until next time
God Bless
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