Horses in Motion

The majority of my work is portraiture where the horse and rider are standing relatively still. However, I love to cover equine events as media and I am occasionally hired to photograph a performance horse at work. I’m sharing a few pointers for capturing action photography below:

High shutter speed

A fast shutter speed is one of my highest priorities because I am trying to freeze the motion as sharply as I can. For portraits, I try not to go under 1/1000s for my shutter speed, but for action, I seldom go below 1/2000s. When you are trying to freeze a fast horse, motion blur is not your friend (unless it was intentional). Sometimes arenas are very dark and so I need to raise my ISO — even so, I would rather be reducing digital noise than deleting images for motion blur. I can’t fix a blurry image in post-production, but I do have tools to smooth out digital noise.

Settings

I’m usually in manual mode, but if the lighting conditions are changing frequently then I might choose Aperture Priority Mode. If I am in Aperture Priority, I need to be sure that my ISO is set high to keep a fast enough shutter speed. I’m typically shooting my 135m lens wide open (at f/1.8) to let in as much light as possible.

On my D850, my focus settings are AF-C d9 with back button focus. I set my focal point to a place with high contrast. For action photos, first I like to select the horse’s eye or the rider’s body to track. However, the focal point needs significant contrast so sometimes I need to find a different place (maybe the saddle or saddle pad) to focus on the subject that my camera can easily track continuously. I hold the AE-AL button down as I hit the shutter so that my camera is constantly refocusing on the moving object.

Know The Sport

Barrel racing, jumping, cowhorse, dressage, reining… know where the action will be in the arena and place yourself accordingly. Practice will help you with your timing, but also do your homework: study how the event is typically photographed. How are the images composed? Where are the horse’s legs? What are the breed or discipline standards? You don’t need to replicate it perfectly, but understanding these items will help you create images that flatter the horse and rider. I like to keep moving around my subject to get interesting perspectives and new angles. Shooting at eye-level is generally uninteresting, so I’m usually trying to go low or high.

Equipment

Camera: Most DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras are great for action photography. I shoot with a Nikon D850 because I love it for portraits. It does a great job with action but I would likely choose a different body if I shot action full-time.

Memory Cards: This is important. I use the fastest memory card that I can so my camera can write quickly and take more images in bursts. Research your camera’s writing speed to select the best memory card for you.

Lenses: You will likely want a long lens because in most equine sports you can’t get too close to the action. I prefer shooting action with my prime lenses, but a zoom lens is certainly more popular among event and action photographers for the versatility.