I was able to spend yesterday shooting the Memorial Day barrel race event at the Lone Star. This is one of my favorite horse events to shoot. The combination of speed, sheer athleticism (horse & rider), timing and horsemanship all combined with the grace and fashion of Texas barrel racers is something to behold. If you ever get a chance, don’t miss an opportunity.
Captured with: nikon D4, 400mm @ f/3.5, iso 5000, 1/800. I shot over 1,500 images… these are the 28 best.
Justin - Finally catching up with everyone since my return from the islands….excited to D4 in your notes. Very cool!
Dave Wilson - I love shooting barrel racing and I’m jealous of this collection. Were you standing somewhere by the arena entrance when you shot these, as a matter of interest? I tend to camp out partway up the side near the first barrel so that I can get the horse and rider on the turn then catch them again as they gallop back to the timing line.
Jeffrey K. Edwards - Justin – I have been following from afar….glad you made it back!
Dave – I set up to the left of the run-in alley. This allows you to shoot the turn on both barrels 1 & 2 as well as get the panning shot between the two. Barrel 3 is really too far to capture well. But it is the perfect place for the straight run for the timing barrier at the end…
Anne Hall - Your pictures are AMAZING, I am so jealous
admin - Anne – thanks so much! I will be coming through your part of the country the 1st week of August on the way to work in Idaho…. would love to go shoot for a day with you and Mel! I do miss the wildness of your part of Nevada… take care.
Bill Barrow - Hi Jeff – great to see these excellent images with your new kit. How is the D4′s real world low light capabilities compared to the D700? Excellent work as usual.
admin - Bill – great question, one that I struggled with to truly understand before switching from the D700 to the D4. What I can tell you is that I shoot a lot at this venue and it is one of the most difficult places because of the lighting. With the D700 I could push the ISO to 3200 and still get good images. With the D4 I can get easily to ISO 5000 or higher and get better images because of the improved ISO capabilities, increased image size (12 vs 16 mpx) and larger dynamic range. I would argue against the D800 because I don’t want/need a 36 mpx (pain to process because of file size) and it has a relatively slow FPS ~ 5, the D4 is 11 FPS. Lastly, the images above were not RAW files, but jpegs. If I had shot RAW, they would have had even more details….