Awwww, thanks so much! I took those when I was still down in Ga. I got Jenks, my mini, from a farm in South Ga. If you'd like information about them, feel free to PM me and I'll pass the info along.

LOL...well then, let me tempt you by saying that he's for sale!

I think they are all wonderful!

Cosmo! Sorry for the delay, here's some info.

Shay Stephens is the one who made the color fringe reducer action.
Shay is great - http://www.shaystephens.com/ca.php

It's hard to photograph light and dark together, that's why wedding photogs get the big bucks If you expose for the white the dark will be too dark. If you expose for the black the white will blow out...right? Not always. Silly little digital cameras have rather stupid sensors and they tend to be fooled by white. Whenever you shot digital you'll want to overexpose your whites. I can tell by looking at your pictures that you did some post processing that changes the colors a bit. Here's some info from Andy Williams regarding photographing snow, sand, etc. http://blogs.smugmug.com/pros/page/3/ (scroll down).

I read through the other posts...when you've got that box attached to your face and you're putting your name on the photos you are the boss. It's easier for you to color some dead grass green than it is to remove a vehicle or trashcan from the background. Be assertive! (I know, easier said than done.)

Chalk is a cutie, but if he was moving with more forward energy I think you'd have really caught his personality. He looks lazy in these shots. I love the feathers flying in the first one! The low view point is cool.

Boon is a cutie too! First shot of him has great timing, he's up and alert and shows a nice stride. Was he going down a hill though? I know he's young, but this shot emphasis his currently downhill confirmation. If I had moo-la and space I'd take him. Gorgeous boy, nice picture! His canter picture I'm not feeling so much. Very soft focus and the crop really doesn't work (I'm going to talk more about that later, though.)

Monty's shots are very nice, he looks like a sweetie. Were the clouds still being a pain? It's so hard to expose these guys when the light doesn't behave. I totally understand!

Bob's cute, I'm digging the energy in this shot! It looks like the light was behind him though and the sign and yellow electric insulators detract a bit of the beauty from the shot. The second shot is even better! Good light!! Good energy, pretty sharp, too!


Paladin,
They just had to ride a black horse with socks and a white saddle pad infront of a white fence backed by dark trees. These people are so mean. Really cute stallion. A good action shot with nice uphill energy captured. Looks like the light was behind him in this shot though (his shadow falls to the inside of the arena, towards you). I like the liberty shot too, but you've lost some sharpness and this one could go through the "pop" treatment too.

I already did Lucy.

Alrighty, two things I noticed in almost all of the photos are color/exposure and close crops.

Give the ponies some breathing room. In sports photography you go by a shoot close, crop closer philosophy. The same is not true in portrait work though. It's hard with horses because of their porportions. You want to leave enough room for the horse to not be trapped in the image. You can break the rule of thirds for most action shots. And, to keep your photo from looking silly you can even...eek. CENTER them!! Don't tell anyone I told you that, it is totally a photog faux pas to center photos.



Even at liberty you'd want your imaginary person "centered". This will balance out our photo and give your horse a space to "move into" so it doesn't look like they're running out of space to move.

Many of the pictures you posted have a "dreamy" look. I think this is from your post processing, trying to get the colors/exposure right. The whites are glowing and blurring a bit, making the images look softer than they really are. I think this was just because it was so overcast and gloomy.

To explain "pop" a bit let me show you to examples of snap shots taken with the little point and shoot one day. It's pretty easy once you've done it a time or two and really just deals with setting a black and white point and moving the curves around a bit.
Original-


Pop!



Original -


Pop!


David has posts a terrific, in depth tutorial here - http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/2292454/1

You should join us over at dgrin - www.dgrin.com They are a very nice group of very good photographers. Everyone is willing to help.
Nice shots though! And, if you want to spend the moo-la a nice lens to get to complement that Rebel of yours is the Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS. It's a sweeeeet lens. I shoot almost exclusivly with the nikon version of that same lens.

Oohhh my gosh!!!!! I really cannot thank you enough for all of the insight into the pictures that I took. It's so wonderful to hear step by step, things that need to be changed in order to really just make the pictures that much better. I can't thank you enough!

As for the weather...it was....yeah...a pain to say the least. LOL It went from overcast and gloomy to bright and impossibly sunny. I took a couple random shots while they were showing Chalk off for somebody wanting to breed to him, and well, you can see what I mean. All I did in this photo was crop and try to fix the sunlight so that it's not blinding. The crazy glow, that's just the sun. Hahaha


Oohhh trust me, I talked to them about trying to do this in a new spot. Since I don't consider myself to be an amateur, let alone a pro, I kinda let them call the shots on location. I know, though, that from now on I get to pick. LOL....It's impossible getting rid of a house, swing set, and a jeep all in one photograph!

I'm with you on movement. This boy has some great movement, but they weren't able to really get him trucking. I had just 1 person there to help motivate the horse to move in a huge 8 acre pasture. Needless to say, we were all sweating by the time we left. And there's nothing quite as funny as a photographer trying to chase the horse while photographing at the same time. Hahaha

The Boon photo was frustrating because he's going downhill. But, it was one that showed his length of stride, so the owners wanted to keep it.

The cropping with the Canter shot was my fault as the photographer. That was a shot that I caught on the edge of the frame, so sadly there wasn't much I could do to fix the positioning there. I'm with you, I prefer something where the horse has "movement" room. But again, the owners liked it. Most of the others I try to give the movement room, because like you said, it looks like the horse is running off the photo otherwise.

Hehehe...I can't thank you enough again for pointing me in the right direction. I'll actually look at getting that lense. I need a better one, and it sounds like that one might be right up my alley.

While I'm continueing to learn more about photography, and just testing the waters on friends horses, I hope you won't mind my getting in touch with you and asking for critiques. I'm definitely nowhere near the same league as you, but for friends I figured it's a step above a disposable camera. *smiles*

Thanks again so much for your time and for the consideration that you showed me! I appreciate it so much!
-Val
*Going off to play with the photos to see if I can fix them...hehehe*

No problem at all! I love talking photography and horses, especially together! Even though I apparently can't type. (I just reread my post...typos and LOTS of "cute" usage.) hehe

If you have any really difficult shots feel free to e-mail them to and I can try to do something with them, but I'm certainly not a photoshop guru!

A quick edit on Paladin- Still too dark, but not blue anymore.


Oops, link fixed.

Hehehe..I can't thank you enough for all of your help with this, and advice. You've inspired me to go playing with some of the photos that I took that weekend, seeing if I can get that "Pop!" at all. Some of the photos just can't seem to get that look, but then again I'm not quite sure I'm doing the "Pop!ing" correctly..hehehe I messed a bit with the levels, contrast, etc. Tell me what you think of these two, just to get the idea if I'm heading in the right direction.

This is Boon's photo. I can see a definite difference in the two. He seems to be seperate of the background in the fixed photo, getting rid of that all over glow in the original pic.

Before


After

Pal's was a bit of a challenge. There was quite a bit of dust in the arena, so it's resulted in the whole thing looking kinda blah. Nothing really standing out. Messed with the levels, and got a bit more "Pop!" out of it. He still looks a little blue to me, which is easy to fix, but you tell me what you think, Teach! *smiles*

Before


After

Thanks again so much for all of your help in this. You're making me a bit braver with my Photoshop, to see if I can beat the elements a bit in getting a clearer shot. Hehehe

-Val

Yay!!

Are you sure you don't have your before and afters of Boon mixed? I like the one on top better!

Great job on the Paladin shot! What did you use for the black point? His mane? I did a threshold adjustment to find the black point and it looks like it should actually be on his hindquarters. When I was free handing it I chose the mane and ended up with that blue tint. I used threshold and got the hindquarter and got this -



They've still got the sun behind them, so I'm sure it was really hard to get this shot.

Have you ever thought of shooting RAW? It's more work, but it gives you more leway when editing.

LOL...That's funny about the Boon shot. The first one is actually the original. I altered it to see if I could get him to seperate from the background a little bit more, but it did produce a far more blue look overall. Hehehehe...I guess I'll have to be a bit careful about which ones I decide to alter. Glad you liked that one better, though!

Thanks so much! With the levels, I just freehanded it. I wanted to try and get rid of some of the glow that was there, and the threshold adjustment must have been just a bit much. Thanks so much for letting me know what you thought! Just glad to know that I'm on the right track!

LOL...And you're going to have to explain what shooting RAW is. I'm still really new to photography, so I'm a bit off on the lingo.

Thanks so much again. I really appreciate your input quite a lot!
-Val

Ohhh, RAW is fantasic and wonderful! I have CS2, my old version of PS didn't have a good RAW editor. RAW is just what is sounds like, a raw image. The camera hasn't done ANY in camera sharpening, color compensation or white balance. It's great! Image quality is better (everytime you edit and save as JPG you create artifacts and suffer quality loss). You've got a couple stops of exposure to play with too. It's really nice. I love it 'cause I can edit photos in batches, save the edits, but keep the originals untouched all in one place.

I shoot Nikon so it's a bit different, but you should find the option under "Image Quality". You probably have it set to "Fine" now. Other options will be something like "Normal", "RAW + JPG", etc.

Here's a quick screen capture of the RAW editor -


**and, now that I look at it again, except for the blue tint, I really do like your edit of Boon better. I'm so wishy washy. That's why I love keeping my originals.

I can't add much over the other poster's comments, just watch the backgrounds and keep on top of the noise reduction. Don't you love this starving photographer thing? "Feed me and I take your pictures! lol"

Is this the same camera you had in NJ?
How did I *not* know we have the same system? What sort of lenses are you using with it?

Paladin is absolutely gorgeous!



Native

Phyxius,

Have finally gotten the will "stuff" out of the way, and I'm ready to replace the old, long dead, Olympus D300L with a new camera. I've finally narrowed my choices down to Nikon, either the D80, or possibly the D40x, and the Cannon EOS D 1, or Digital Rebel xti. Would like the capability of using either CF or SD cards, since I may also replace my cellphone with a new one that has a memory slot too. I also like the cameras with CF capability for more storage space. Although, the SD's are catching up. Any thoughts??

Frank

Val,

Which Cannon Rebel do you have and what do you think of the one you have. See my above post to Phyxius. Thanks for your input as well.

Frank

Ohhhhh goodie shopping! Fun!

I have a Nikon, but Canons are great and you'll have an easier time finding stuff in stock with Canon. Both Canon and Nikon have pros and cons. I prefer Nikon, personally. At the low end the prices are pretty comparable, maybe Nikon is a little cheaper. But, once you get to high end the Nikon stuff gets pricey and Canon stays a little, tiny bit cheaper.

I use a little bitty D50. It's what I could afford when I switched from my Canon film SLR to a digital SLR. In my opinion the number one lens for either Nikon or Canon, for just about anything is the Nikkor (Nikon) 70-200 F2.8 VR or the Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS. SHARP, FAST, GORGEOUS, HEAVY lenses. Once you get used to the weight you won't even mind lugging around a 4pd lens, the pictures are that pretty.

My newest toy is the cheap-o wonder...nikkor 50mm 1.8. This fast little prime is commonly called a nifty-fifty or fantastic plastic. Both Canon and Nikon have one. They're small, cheap (around $100), plastic and WONDERFUL! They take super sharp images and they weigh nothing! As with any prime you've really got to get used to the fact that you'll not be zooming.

Re: CF and SD. SD are smaller, but many cameras can't take more than a 2 or 4 gig card. I actually prefer this. With a 6mp camera even shooting RAW I get about 250 images on a 1gig card. I LIKE have 2-3 cards per event instead of one with everything. To me, it's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket. Risky. Lots of people LOVE CF. It's bigger and cheaper. I prefer SD. When you do go memory shopping you'll want to check HERE first. These guys find deals all the time and keep us all updated. I've gotten 2GB ultra high speed cards for peanuts, it's great!

Your cell phone probably has a microSD slot? It's not compatible with anything. But, I got a 21 in 1 multi slot reader for about $15 from wal-mart.