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Been battling with this indoor arena for awhile, still not mastered it, but managed to get this photo yesterday, I know its not the best, but if anyone can give me directions to taking shots in a very dark covered arena I would be very grateful,




Suzanne

Suzanne, I assume you used your 24-120VR and the SB800 on this shot.
The background's fairly sharp but the horse and rider isn't, so it's gotta be subject movement.

To stop subject movement you've gotta use a fast exposure (either directly with shutter speed or indirectly with flash duration). Sure the VR will keep the image steady but won't help with subject movement. I would guess you'd need something like 1/1000 sec if you weren't using flash to stop the motion in this sort of shot. The D200 synchs up to 1/250 sec with the SB800. So the bottom line is that you don't want much ambient light coming from within the arena, otherwise you'll get subject blur.

To achieve this with SB800, I would use TTL mode not TTL BL mode as you want the SB800 to provide all the light on the subject and hence give you the fast effective shutter speed (I think the SB800 flash duration is as fast as 1/8000 sec or something like that). I would use manual mode and set aperture at f11 or higher. Set your shutter speed at 1/250. Using these settings you won't be capturing much ambient light, just SB800 light from within the arena. Basically meter your shot from the background (outside the arena) so the sky is not blown. Then use the power of the SB800 to give you the light you need on the subject.

Hope this suggestion helps. If not, the offer of the D70 for the D200 trade is still on the table.

Cheers
John

Suzanne,
I'm not so sure it's subject movement. I can't see a streak or double image. It may simply be that the lens was focussed on the background because it was unable to track the fastmoving subject. However...JohnD might be right....it's a possibility that it may be subject movement.

Thanks John & Matt,

I have printed all these instructions out, they will go in my camera bag and i will head back to the arena tomorrow, John when you set to manual do you mean the camera,? ( gee now i really do feel dumb, ) played round with so many settings, camera on manual , auto , then flash on manual etc, so now do I put my camera on manual , get those setting , then flash on TTL with the setting its gets from my camera ? gee does that make sense, I understand about needing shutter speed to freeze my horse, but not sure on the" indirectly with flash duration.

Thanks again for taking the time to help me,

Suzanne

I'm with Matt, I think the focus fas too far back. The rider seems sharper than the horses head. What aperture and focusing mode were you using?

I'd try a larger aperture as johnd suggested, that will also darken down the bright background. Set the focus to AF-C (continuous), rather than the normal AF-S (single shot) that you would normally use. The reason being in AF-C the camera tries to keep the focus on whatever is in any given focus point, whereas in AF-S it will just focus on something then lock there, which isn't much good if your horse has moved 3m in the next second before you take the shot .

However, it looks quite dark it the shed, and the autofocus might not cope with the low light and high subject speed. If this is the problem you're having, try prefocusing or trap focusing.

Prefocusing is the technique of focusing on a spot on the ground where you know that the horse is about to be. Just wait for them to fill the frame and take the shot. It's useful in motorsport, when you know that a car will appear at a certain spot on a track, but probably won't be too useful here.

Trap focusing is a trick where you set the AE-L/AF-L button (next to your right thumb) to AF-ON. I don't own a D200, but the option will be in one of the custom menus. Once this is set, the camera won't try to autofocus until you press the button. What you do is manually focus at a certain distance, and hold the shutter button down. The shutter won't release until something is in focus, so the instant that your rider appears at the right distance to be in focus, the shutter will automatically 'trap' him

Edit: Fleshed out details a bit. hope it helps

bindiblue wrote:Thanks John & Matt,

I have printed all these instructions out, they will go in my camera bag and i will head back to the arena tomorrow, John when you set to manual do you mean the camera,? ( gee now i really do feel dumb, ) played round with so many settings, camera on manual , auto , then flash on manual etc, so now do I put my camera on manual , get those setting , then flash on TTL with the setting its gets from my camera ? gee does that make sense, I understand about needing shutter speed to freeze my horse, but not sure on the" indirectly with flash duration.

Thanks again for taking the time to help me,

Suzanne

Hi Suzanne,

By manual I mean shooting mode to M. I think on the D200 you have choice of M, P, A, S.

I don't mean focus mode which can be M or AF. You should be using AF for focus mode with your AF lenses.

After setting your aperture and shutter, the camera will tell the SB800 what settings are set. Also, use spot metering not centre weighted metering. Then when focussing on the rider or horse, the camera will tell the SB800 all the right settings and the SB800 will give the appropriate burst of light. The SB800 should be on TTL mode.

What I meant by indirectly with the flash duration is: When the flash makes up most/all of the light on the subject, the shutter speed on the camera is not that important. The flash fires it's light off very quickly. I think it's between 1/1000 sec and 1/8000 sec or so (I can't find my SB800 manual but it's in there). So if the ambient light is low (in comparison to the flash), the flash will freeze the action just like a shot taken in full daylight at between 1/1000 - 1/8000 sec would freeze the action. If the ambient light is high in comparison to the SB800 light (such as in TTL BL mode), the freezing effect of the SB800 flash won't occur as all the ambient light is coming in at 1/250 sec or whatever the camera is synching at.

I hope this makes sense. But as Matt said, it may not be subject movement at all. The lens may be focussing on some other part of the image (those trees were fairly sharp). If this is occurring, the high f stop (f11) will help as well as a greater depth of field will be in focus.

Cheers
John

Suzanne
further to using trap focus
the D200 has a separate "AF-ON" button on the rear of the camera (top right)

set your camera like this
focus mode selector S (single servo) ~ page 51 in manual mode dial to S (single shot) ~ page 26 in manual
AF-area mode to SINGLE AREA AF ~ page 54 in manual
to use AF-ON open the menu and change setting a6 to AF-ON only ~ page 151 in manual

to see how this works try it in front of your computer now...
set the camera as above
now focus on the corner of your monitor..... it will not focus with the shutter button (try it)
now without pressing the shutter use the AF-ON button with your thumb and it should focus and lock on the corner of the monitor
take your thumb off the AF-ON and point your camera past your monitor to some thing as far back as you can go
now if you press the shutter button nothing will happen (no focus or shutter release)
while still holding the shutter down swing the camera back to the corner of your monitor and as the focus point comes over the corner the shutter should release and take a shot (eg. something has come into focus at the focus distance you have set and the camera fires)

now if you have someone at home get them to help
use the AF-ON button to focus on the frame of an open door then aim the camera in the middle of the doorway and hold the shutter down and get them to walk/run through the door and the camera should fire when they come into focus

the next step is to go out side and try it with cars driving down your street
use the AF-ON to focus a point 20-30 yards down the road
then track a car as it approaches (pan with the car) with the shutter held down and the camera should take the shot as the car reaches the focus point

it takes a bit of practice

now go shoot the horses
you will still need to set flash / aperture/ speed etc. to get the light right
but the above should help with the focus




more horse shots http://pics.mcgoffs.net/issy/

That's an excellent explanation of trap focus keith, thanks!!

Oh... and why does that horse look like Fabio?

Paul

Thanks again guys, I have also printed out all you said Keith, will be trying this all out, this is the biggest learning curve I have had in a long time,

I really do appreciate all the help you guys are giving me,

Thanks again

Suzanne

Forgot to add, Keith I took a look at your gallery,, they are beautiful arabs, are these yours or didyou just take photos of them ?

Suzanne