Settings question

[fishinchicks]

I will be at the coliseum at the State Fair grounds this coming weekend for the 4-H horse show.

I am planning on using my Canon Rebel XT with either my 55-250 IS lens or my 35-80 lens. I do not currently have an external flash.

Any suggestions on settings? I am still working on figuring out all the settings in AV and TV mode.

Some of the activities that I will be photographing are the judging team (kids walking around different groups of horses, ranking them), showmanship (person is not on horse, but walks them through a pattern), and possibly gaming (riders on horseback, going fast).

If this were outdoors, I would have a better handle on settings, but I still get burned on evening and indoor shots.

If any of you from the Cities want to watch a free horse show, they are competing from 7am to 11pm on Saturday and Sunday. The judging events are Friday evening.

[Dbl]

Will this be shot during the day? Your lighting will much better inside the Coliseum making your life a bit easier.

I would recommend shooting in AV, because I don't recall the lighting is even inside. Keep your lens at its most open aperture 4-5.6 I believe and then adjust your ISO to give you at least 1/320s or a bit higher on your shutter speed.

I have to run but can go into a bit more detail later.

[CFRay]

Hi, Now I'm only a rookie but you do have a camera I'm familiar with. I will gladly defer to some of the pro's that hopefully will correct me if I steer you in error.

I'd suggest the lens with the IS feature you have, that should allow slower shutter speeds(more light). {Make sure all the lights in the coliseum are on (haha)}. Set the camera in Av mode, then set the ISO to 800, use the wheel near the shutter button to dial the F-stop to 4.0, that should then automatically choose the shutter speed for you based on the light available. Hopefully the action isn't to quick and you get a blurred image.

Good Luck!

[finnbay]

Right on, Dan. ISO is the key here. As long as the exposures are correct, even with a higher ISO setting, noise should be kept to a minimum. If you can get your Av settings and ISO to a point where you can shoot at 1/320, a good number of shots should be usable.

Mostly correct CF, except that IS is intended for subjects that are still or nearly still. Shooting at moving objects will not keep your subject from blurring with IS.

Just a minute, unless your lens has an IS2 setting and you pan with the subject. That's a whole different story and a whole different effect.

[Dbl]

I noticed you will be also shooting some static type activities, judging for instance. I think to simplify your shooting you could just shoot all the activities in Av.

Again as I stated above I don't think the lighting is very consistent from one part of the arena to another so Av will help adjust your shutter speed to keep the proper exposure. For the more static activities keep an eye on your shutter speed and if it drops below about 1/250s that is when you want to raise the ISO. You can use your IS on the lens to help you as well when the shutter speeds are lower.

You have a variable aperture lens so as you zoom out it will change from f4.0 toward f5.6 until you get out to max zoom of 250mm. If you zoom back in toward 55mm in most lenses the aperture will stay at f5.6, so be mind full of your aperture when you zoom back in, you may need to reset it at f4.0.

If this seems to complicated for the more static events just put the camera in "P" mode, Program and let the camera take care of the rest. Keep in mind it will use the on board flash if the light is poor, you may or may not want that. If you don't want the flash to fire switch back to Av. When you start to shoot the action or moving horses you may want to switch to Av anyhow to get the best results.

If you shoot some of the riding activities that is when you will want to get that shutter speed up to 1/320s or higher to help with stopping the action and not get a lot of motion blur. Again just keep raising your ISO to keep your shutter speed up where you want it. As Ken said if you keep proper exposure you should get nice results even at the higher ISO's.

With shutter speeds at higher speeds like this you will really have no benefit to keeping the IS on. In some cases it may even slow your focus down just a bit. IS will not help you stop motion created by shooting action. IS will help steady your camera when shooting at slower shutter speeds.

Sounds as if you will have plenty of opportunities to get a nice variety of shots, I am sure you will do just fine. I hope you share a few photos after the event. If you have more detailed questions by all means ask away, lots of knowledgeable folks will provide you with good advice.

Good luck and happy shooting!

[fishinchicks]

Thanks guys!

I will print out your suggestions and stick them in my camera bag. I figured I could practice on some of the kids that are not from our county, and use them to get the settings correct.

I will be there Friday and most of Saturday. Too many things going on for us at home on Sunday to stay up there. Still should be plenty fun!

[Steve Foss]

Definitely print out the advice and practice before it's time to get the shots you really want. You've gotten good advice.

Have fun, and be sure to share some of your images here!