Writing on Google+ on September 19th, Scott Kelby displayed a photo of a football game where someone had walked between him and his subject just as the shutter fired. A lot can happen in that split second between squeezing down on the shutter button and the exposure being made. One advantage of the high end DLSRs is that the manufacturers work hard on reducing that delay but it's still there.
Bronco Bustin'
My example that I'm sharing below was taken at the Katy Livestock show and Rodeo earlier in the year. The Katy Rodeo is one of the last remaining high school rodeo, livestock show and parade events that still exists in texas.
The first shot shows an erstwhile cowboy being thrown from the bronco he was riding. But the shot below was the one I wanted. Unfortunately for me, a person in the stands in front of me started to raise their hands with the result I have a fog right over the cowboy's face as he crashes face first into the dirt. Being a rodeo cowboy is not for the faint of heart!
Katy Rodeo 2011
Despite having lived in Katy for eight years, this was the first year I visited the Katy Rodeo, and that was only because my son and members of his grade we're tagged to sing the national anthem to get the show started one evening. Since we were there we decided to hang out and watch some events.
Below are a selection of images from the 2011 event depicting bronco busting, calf roping, team calf roping, mutton busting (kids on sheep) and bull riding.
From the stands, I was quite some way from the action. With the events being held at night, the lighting is relatively poor for photography. I found myself cranking my ISO up to 6400 in order to get a shutter speed of 1/1000 to freeze the motion. My 100-400 f4.5-f5.6, while having the length I wanted didn't have the speed I needed so I found myself falling back on my 70-200 f2.8 – sacrificing some length for speed. The results I got were OK, but I wish I could have gotten closer or that there had been more light as even on the Canon 5D Mark II, 6400 ISO is still noisy.
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Katy Rodeo 2012
The Katy Rodeo is a professional rodeo, sanctioned by the CPRA. It might be professional but the purses are not particularly high, a few hundred dollars for a win. But they have a full card of events each night and the event runs for three nights. The 2012 Katy Rodeo will be held on February 23, 24 and 25.
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II (B&H)
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Zoom Lens (B&H)
Lens: Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Autofocus Lens (B&H)
Processing: Lightroom 3 (B&H)
