Indoor arena horse show

[ac250364]

Hi
i attended an indoor horse event yesterday and for whatever reason, the owners would only switch on one strip of lights doiwn the middle of the roof in a big arena and relied on natural light .
Using a Nikon D80 with 18-135 lens, at iso 200 at best i could only get a shutter speed of 1/40 at f5 and eventually had to settle for upping the iso to 1600 and even then i could only shoot under exposed at 1/100th in an attempt to freeze motion and lighten in PSE.
Obviously flash and horses sometimes don't mix, is there anyting else i could have done to give me a faster shutter speed?
thaks
Andy
www.acampbellphotography.com

[chris-p]

Doesn't sound like there is anything else you could have done.

If flash is out (understandably) and you've got the lens as wide as it'll go and your ISO is maxed out then you can't get faster. I think I'd have given up and gone home!

[ether]

Originally Posted by ac250364

Hi
i attended an indoor horse event yesterday and for whatever reason, the owners would only switch on one strip of lights doiwn the middle of the roof in a big arena and relied on natural light .
Using a Nikon D80 with 18-135 lens, at iso 200 at best i could only get a shutter speed of 1/40 at f5 and eventually had to settle for upping the iso to 1600 and even then i could only shoot under exposed at 1/100th in an attempt to freeze motion and lighten in PSE.
Obviously flash and horses sometimes don't mix, is there anyting else i could have done to give me a faster shutter speed?
thaks
Andy
www.acampbellphotography.com

surprisingly horses are usually oblivious to the flash its the people that it annoys


Ed

[ac250364]

hi
thanks to you both for your responses
i did suggest firing the flash at the ground near by to gauge reaction but they weren;t having it.
and yes i did pack up my printer and lap top and prepared for a long night of photoshop!
AC

[zenmer]

I have had the same problem at Ardingly Show Ground earlier this year, the lighting in the indoor arena is a nightmare.
To be honest the best solution is fast lenses , something with an aperture of 2.8 or less will allow for faster shutter speeds, but you will lose some depth of field.

[GraemeMather]

It's a tough one.

Even harder because you really need a fast shutter speed to keep pictures of riders sharp. Last equestrian event i covered, I had control of all the arena lighting and cranked it to the max even though they had skylights and it was a bright day.
When it started to get a bit darker it was metering about 1/320 f2.8 at iso2000 and to be honest I could have done with it being a bit quicker.

Unfortunately shooting at f5 you are going to have a few issues. Faster lenses would help but I think you did the best you could with the equipment/ situation you were faced with! Depending on what you are going to do with your images, iso 3200 (Hi3 on the D80?) can work out fine.

As my signature says, who cares about noise, especially if you have a sharp shot?!?!? Better than having a blurry image!

Cheers

GM