barrel racing

[Kaye]

Really would love to learn how to photograph barrel racing. I practiced with the local kids Sunday and the photo below is one of the best, after a lot of pp work to sharpen. I would love to get them right off the camera sharper than I did since I'm not very good at the pp work. This photo has A LOT of sharpening done.

Notice how unsharp the girl/horse are and the barrel seems in better focus.......


Thinking some of my focus problem could be either tripod: maybe should have handheld and tracked the subject instead of getting focus on the barrel and waiting on subject to come into view. Just get focus and track like I do the ball players.

I was in Shutter Speed Mode
AF-C
Dynamic

Had two different people tell me that I should have used AF-S, and that the Dynamic or Single would be ok.

I thought I understood these different settings as follows:

I thought that the AF button on top of the camera was used for
AF-S: single still subjects, portraits and landscapes
AF-C: for moving subjects, like sports, etc
AF-A: camera adjusted to the situation itself

Mode, a1:
Now this setting does confuse me because of the focus points, but I think I understand it as follows.
Single: one focus point no matter how many times you tap the shutter button (i use for portraits)
Dynamic: same thing (i use for sports)
Auto: can give you from one to many focus points. I use this a a lot when photographing a lot of people or landscapes. When I want to make sure everything is in focus, but this would be difficult to use with something moving as fast as a horse or ball player.

Any advise, discussion or just your ideas would be gladly appreciated. I noticed on some of the other D90 message boards that these two settings seem to confuse people like me more than anything else to do with the D90.

[LeeR]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand AF-C to mean that the camera will shoot continuously even if it has not fully focused yet. This eliminates any delay, but can leave you with less than optimal clarity.

[Kaye]

Yes, that is my understand also. I used it Sunday and would have to say that it might not have been my best choice. But I will have to say that I use it all the time for baseball and softball with great results. Not sure why I didn't get the same results with the barrel racing.

But thinking about it now, I see that when I use it on baseball/softball I start by focusing on the batter or second basemen while they are still, then continous shoot the batter or track and continue shoot the fielder.

Sunday I was using a tripod and waiting on the horse/rider to come into the frame. And a horse is really really a lot faster than the ball player.

[henson]

pretty horse!

[Elmo]

Barrel racing has a unique thing -- you always know exactly where the action will be. Manual focus on that spot and wait for the action. Use a very high shutter speed and shoot wide open to "loose the background".

Non of which were done in this case, but the background was necessary for the application

[Kaye]

Thanks Henson and Elmo for responding to my post. I hope to get some more advise for all of you out there that know more about this than I do.

I have been really been studying a lot of barrel racing/rodeo photography on Flickr and I've noticed two things that the sharper photos have in common. All of them were shot at a higher combination of Shutter Speed and Aperture. My badly focused shots either had a high (lower fstop numbe, f2.8) or slower shutter speed than the better ones on flickr. I'm thinking that I need to keep my shutter speed above 1000 and not allow my aperture to go any higher than around f5.6.

Please give me your advise if you think I am looking at this the right way. Thank you.

[wamplers]

Originally Posted by Kaye

and not allow my aperture to go any higher than around f5.6.

Please give me your advise if you think I am looking at this the right way. Thank you.

I think this will depend on the quality of your lens. I generally prefer shooting at f/2.8 as it blurs the background and helps the subject pop out more. Using f/5.6 will give you more DOF which is a band-aid for another problem, either a lens that isn't sharp wide open or technique that needs to be improved. I shoot Canon, so I can't comment on your gear.

I'm assuming you're using AI Servo (or Nikon's equivalent to continuous focus).

Beyond that, I can't be any more help as I've never shot equestrian events before.

[Kaye]

Thanks Wamplers. It was kind of you to respond and give me your opinion. I appreciate it very much. The lens options for me at the distance I will be are my 24-70mm and 18-105mm kit lens.

[Kaye]

I photographed the barrel racing event yesterday and did okay. Thanks to all of you and a nice young man on flickr that helped me step by step with the "trap focus". I think I will leave my camera set that way from now on. Thanks again everyone.

[wamplers]

Looking good. Have you tried a closer crop to see if that helps by eliminating some background (since you couldn't shoot wide open)?