Rain, different lights at the track, One can learn a lot pretty quick

[ilzho]

Well, I took my equipment out to the race track and what a learning experiment. Now I know why I drink, haha, just kidding.

Being early evening (some natural light) in to late evening (stadium lights), cloudy, raining, bugs, flickering, under exposure, photo noise haha... One can learn a lot in a few hours.

This was my first time at night racing.

Not the best, but t least I can strive to do lots better.........

https://flic.kr/s/aHskzHs2MU

[TTMartin]

Really nice. You can see the improvement in the image quality from your upgraded gear. Also, you can see that you are getting better too. Good story of the track, from the horses going to the paddock, to the post parade, to the outrider, to loading the starting gate, to the race itself. Also, a great sense of motion in many of the photos, nice combination of panning blur, and motion blur in the horses legs, yet the jockey and most of the horse are nice and sharp. Your practice is paying off. Keep it up.

[ilzho]

Ahh thanks. This gear rocks....... I love it.

I went this afternoon for a few races, images much better, still have a lot of throw away images on the motion blur. I tried using one af point and about 60-80 ss, not too successful in that regard with 6lb gear, haha. I'm building muscles in my arms and shoulders. The one af point is fine, but it does not allow too much room to miss the subject. I like the group of 5 middle points..... anyway

I did get some nice motion freeze images.

I am shooting in Raw, editing in Iphoto.

I need to learn and figure out how to adjust for the shadowing on a subject.

Yes I can move to a better location, but as the horse is walking to their stall in the paddock towards me, I take a pic and one side of their face is light and the other side is dark (2pm sunshine). Again, I can find a better location, but I am not sure if the metering mode matters or if I should change it. These horses just don't stay still, haha.....

I'll post images from this afternoon later.

Thanks again!

[ebiggs1]

"Not the best, but t least I can strive to do lots better........."

Normally, and before I looked at your stuff, I would say to get yourself a good post editor.  Great photos are made in post not in the camera.  However, you seem to be doing quite well with iphoto.

Seriously, though, you just really do need to get down and dirty with a serious post editor.  Of course by far and away the Photoshop family of products is king.

[ilzho]

You're right I need a photo editor and I have gotten a few recommendations on here.

I don't have enough justification to purchase the full version of photoshop, but I will get PS Elements as the research I have done, seems to be pretty good for my needs at the moment.

[ebiggs1]

That is fine since you can not buy PS anymore.  You must rent it.  PSE should do all you will ever want.

[Waddizzle]

Unless you're performing surgery on your photos, or some other special visual effect, I would recommend Lightroom over Photoshop.

[ilzho]

No surgey can help help my photos.....

I like lightroom from what I'm reading. I'll have to look at the difference between the 2.

Thanks

[ebiggs1]

"I'll have to look at the difference between the 2"

Night and day.  They are not the same and their purpose is not the same. LR is aimed toward the pro that shoots thousands of photos at a time.  LR compliments PS, it is in no way a replacement. It has way less ability as it is designed to batch or mass produce images and store them in a data base.  PS does one photo at a time. It keeps track of nothing.

Now PSE on the other hand has the same capability that LR has plus most of what full blown PS has. So which is the better deal PSE or LR, it should be obvious

[ilzho]

Thanks for the info.

I have never used LR, PS or PSE.

I am not a pro either, but I do shoot a lot. 

When I use Iphoto to PP a RAW image, I'm limited. Some of the limitations is Iphoto and some of it is myself. I have trouble PP an image and what looks ok to me, may not look to others.

I guess it's a learning curve.