Eventing at Horseheath - Experiments in Shutterspeed

This is the second year that Horseheath has held Eventing. It is a very open and friendly event. I decided to experiment with shutterspeed as I do like images that show movement and particularly water spray. The first five pictures are taken at 1/1000th, 1/250th, 1/160th. 1/125th and 1/60th (also sixth photo). Show jumping and Dressage both 1/1000th. The slow 1/60th shutterspeed gave the sort of image I was looking for but the hit rate is very low indeed and difficult to control the highlights. 1/125th is probably the safest for panned shots so will try this also at the water jump.

Visit to Newmarket Stable

Many thanks Geoff for showing us round Stanley House Stud yesterday - great to see so many healthy foals and mothers enjoying the sunshine. Ouija Board certainly thought the whole thing a laugh. I concentrated on manes, bristles and eyes including one shot of our party reflected in an eye

Icelandic Horses at Play

We stopped during our drive to Budir to enjoy the antics of these very frisky horses against a fabulous backdrop. As usual, they had been well trained in posing!

Horseheath Point-to-Point

Typical Easter holiday weather in East Anglia so it was pretty challenging both physically and photographically at the horse event with strong winds, intermittent rain and poor light. The Fuji (XT-1 and 100-400) performed well at 3200 iso and allowed me to capture some of the action - not as high a success rate as with my previous Canon gear but the ISO performance means that any captured action is presentable. These have only had the standard Lightroom adjustments. Images 5 and 6 show that the burst rate also keeps up with action though the buffer did fill quickly. Need to investigate if settings can improve this.

Huntingdon Races on Easter monday

After a lovely sunny morning, the afternoon at Huntingdon Races was cloudy and very chilly but we managed to stay for most of the action. Mainly at 1600th with 100-400mm lens so f5.6 and iso800-1000 so quite a lot of noise from the 7D.