A few from the Rodeo

[Roy]

Well what we went to wasn't the rodeo as we know it. They called it the "Best of Mexico Celebración" and it was the entertainment for Sunday evening and Monday afternoon. It was different and entertaining, just not what I was expecting. The rodeo as we know it picks up later this week, Friday I think. Anyway getting photos in there with the light they have was as described in my help thread. In other words, IT WAS DARK and what light we had was bad. I had my stuff with me so I took a few anyway. I had ISO set to 1600. Several I probably should have set to 3200. Wish I had been on the other end of the arena. The end we were on just didn't have much action. Next time I go I'll walk to the other end (where the action is) even if I have to stand in the isle. I'm not real happy with the shots I got but some were not too bad.

[KeithnFW]

Good stuff there Roy!. . . . I may try to hit the show myself later this week. . .

[Aarti]

Great shots there Roy!! I did try my hand at few, but wasn't very succesful. Will give it another shot today.

[Roy]

Thanks Keith and Aarti. Aarti, it looks like from the angle you got your shot from that you were to the right of my location. Were you on the side or end?

Wish I was going back today. I'm done with the rodeo part but there's a lot more out there to shoot. If I could get back in for the price I got in yesterday, I'd be back though.

Here's a few more. Got a bunch I'm not going to post and got a bunch more that got deleted on purpose.

The one where the transfer is made is after he secured the ride. This was his third attempt and he's already been kicked around pretty good from falling off the first two attempts. When he transfered from his horse to the one in the photo, all he had to hold onto was the mane! Not an easy trick and they would of carried me out of there after the fist miss. Ouch!!

[Aarti]

Great shots Roy,

Looks like you were at my left. I was at the opposite end of the entrance for the performers in the balcony. How do you get seats down there? You have awesome photos. What settings did you use. It would be great to know them as I am planning on giving it one more shot today.
Thanks,
Aarti

[Roy]

Aarti,

The place where my wife works gives out season tickets to employees that request them by replying to an email at work. Plus they get that special parking thing to park just east of the colosieum which is great! Otherwise I'd be parking I don't know where and would not have first row seats for sure.

I just set my ISO to 1600 on my 20D and shot wide open at 2.8 with my 70-200 lens and shot in aperture priority mode. The shutter speed varied depending on the light. I also had this heavy thing mounted on a monopod. Don't know if that helps you any or not but that's all I did. Got a few that were even blown out with the spotlight when it got close to us. It's definately a challenging place to get shots from. Good luck to you today and show us what you got to see!

Edit: She doesn't get season tickets. She just gets to pick one day.........

[PeteQ]

Hey Roy, I hope you don't mind me adding a few to the thread you started on the stock show and rodeo. I went today and just kind of fooled around with various ISO's and such. Some came out ok, some not so ok.... Might have to do a b&w on a few of them!!

This was ISO 800, 1/250, 50mm, f1.8

[Aarti]

That's so cool! Well I know my mistake now, I used shutter priority. The light is not even, and the balcony seats just don't make the cut unless the riders are far. The closer they come, the more it feels like a skycam in football

I agree it is too challenging to shoot there. Also the fact that I took up photography few weeks back doesn't help. I just lack the experience that most of you have. But I must thank you guys, I keep learning so many new things everyday.

Take care 'n' Have fun!
Aarti

[PeteQ]

Here's another from the same arena. They seemed to be working closer to this side so I moved over. The nice thing about these events is they are wide open as for seating. Lots of room to move and try different things. I shoot in aperture priority (AP) or manual, but mainly AP and keep it wide open or thereabouts. I try not to let my shutter drop below 1/500 for horses but you can sneak a few 1/250's in if you catch them right. I usually end up in the ISO 800 range unless I have strobes set up. Sometimes an external flash will do the trick but for large subjects like this (horse, rider, cow) there is just too much area for it to cover evenly so I try to shoot ambient and clean it up a bit later.

ISO 800, AP, 50mm/f1.8 1/500, no flash

[Roy]

Hang in there Aarti. Don't ever let a challenge get ya down. Just take it on and see what happens. Bunch of folks here know way more than I do about photography and I'm still learning at 58 years of age.

Hey Pete, don't mind at all. It's always nice to get some good shots on one of my threads. See, that one you got is what I'm talking about for the rodeo. That cowboy looks like he's having a great time too! Post up all you want.

Guess you got my message. Wish I could of met you out there yesterday. Maybe some other time will workout.

[PeteQ]

Yes sir, I did get your message. We'll have to get together and give it a go one day. The other thing about horses, cattle and the like is they are super prone to "golden eye" when using on-camera flash. Much like redeye only worse! You really need to get the flash far off-camera to alleviate it because of the huge size of their eyes. In shots like mine with all those cattle and horses it would take forever and look like crap to try to clean them all up. Much easier to try to bump the ISO and use ambient light if possible.

All the above and $4.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks!

[Roy]

I forgot something on my set up. I also shot in RAW and in processing, when the house lights were up, I switched my white balance to tungsten. When they had the spotlight on I just kept it at standard. But I still deleted quite a few and I don't normally have to do that.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I was wondering how much light that they had in the arena. Looks like Fast Glass-Primes is about the only way to shoot in there.
I would assume flash is frowned on since it may spook the animals and since most of the action is really far away for a flash anyway.

[evil4blue]

Hey Roy, I just want to let you know that I have noticed a dramatic difference in your photography over the last few months. Good job and keep it up!

[Roy]

DEMDeepEllumMusic, I saw people using flash and I wondered what they got from it. I don't see how flash would help in this arena like you say, better to use what light that was there with fast lenses. I don't know of any rule saying you can't use flash. I fact I heard the announcer mention several times for the viewers to "get your cameras ready". He never mentioned anything about flash.

Thanks Steve. Just using some better equipment is probably the main difference. Maybe some improvement in the editing but not much in fact I don't think I do as much work to get the photos to look decent. Not great but decent. I'm an old man still trying to learn.