Focussing moving horses ? Help for a newb!

hiya,
My first attempt at horse pics was at a recent county show & they were terrible, if the horse was moving, it was either v soft or out of focus.
They just dont seem sharp enough.

I was trying to focus on the jump & press the shutter as i heard the horse approaching, on the whole i thought my timing was ok, i got alot mid jump, front legs bent, ears forward but blurred horse & nicely focussed jump and/or background.

i've been reading loads of posts on here about equine photography and there
some great tips which i have made a note of, espec Dod & Hacker, i've looked at lots of your CC's.

I shot most at about 1/250 f8 ISO 400.
Having read forums, i think i should have had a faster shutter speed, do you think that was the only prob or was it camera shake or something else?

I am using a D40x & a Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G AF-S DX VR.
I'm thinking of getting a D300 or a new lens soon, but in this case i think the operator was at fault not the tools!

I'm assisting at a showjumping & x-country event soon.
Do you think that lens is fast enough, i dont know whether the jumping is indoors or out?

images on flickr are not edited at all aprt from some crops.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3102/2778869189_00aa8a2aed.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3035/2778855687_4a5a1ef3e0.jpg


http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjphotos/
advice & critique welcome!
thanks

Hi

I don't do much showjumping so I may be of limited help but:

Do you use Auto or Manual focus?

If auto, it may be best to pan with the horse, this takes practice. If Manual, then prefocus on where you want to be and then shoot when the horse enters that zone.

Also, I would suggest a faster shutter speed, up to 500 if possible. If it's indoors, you may need to up the ISO.

Hopefully others will come along with more indepth advise.

Good luck.

hi fabs,
Thanks, i saw some of your earlier posts on this topic.
I use auto focus, i did have a go at panning but cant tell from the pics which ones, i certainly didnt get the hang of it.
I was focussing on the jump & waiting for the horse so sounds like that was a bit silly, thats why jump was in focus & horse wasnt, but if i'd been manually focussing it might have worked.

If you're using Auto focus, switch to C-AF or Continuous Automatic Focusing. It will continue to focus even whilst locked, so that targets like horses that get closer and further away always stay in focus.

Just had a look at your Flickr photos... they look ok to me... but I think the better ones were when you have the horse facing you or at 3/4's, not from the side. They just look appealing and you've got the facial expressions of the jumper and the horse which add that special something to the pics.

I'd also try shooting portrait if you can... that way you fill the frame with horse, rider and ground without leaving any dead space (helps give a sense of height that the pair are jumping as well).

Oh and I'd try to shoot as low an aperture as possible to blur the background and draw the viewer's attention to subject.



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MikeeB said:

If you're using Auto focus, switch to C-AF or Continuous Automatic Focusing. It will continue to focus even whilst locked, so that targets like horses that get closer and further away always stay in focus.

Click to expand...

ok.
So, with the camera on AF-C, i focus on the horse's head by pressing shutter halfway, then pan until horse gets to the jump?
Is that right? Do i have to lock the focus by pressing something or is it locked by holding shutter down? sorry, v basic photog questions
what if i wasnt panning?

thanks

No, that's the point, it's not locked. So it continues to focus on the subject as you pan with it.
The only problem with this approach is that you can concentrate so much on staying with the pan that you mis-time the shot, but I think it's the best solution with a little practice.

thanks guys.
any more advice for focussing on moving subjects, my kids are pretty tough to catch too!

With shots like these, if you're simply going to shoot the jump each time, you can pre-focus on the jump, pan with the horse and release the shutter as and when. There is no need to overcomplicate the solution by worrying about tracking the focus with the horse. You could even stick the camera in MF mode for most of these shots.

From your EXIF data there does not seem to be a problem with shutter speeds, but your ISO is fairly high for daytime shooting. I don't know what your camera is like for noise but at 800 ISO maybe there is some noise reduction going on in camera that is softening the fine details. I don't shoot horses but I would guess that with good panning you could shoot at nearer to 1/250 than 1/500. Open up the aperture as wide as poss to get better isolation of your subject against the background and that should help you get the ISO down lower.

Lastly, do you shoot raw or jpeg, and what is your workflow for resizing images? To get great looking photos you should sharpen after downsizing, and before finally saving the file to jpeg. If you can post a full size, unedited image up to Flickr then I suspect someone could see what they can do with it for you. I'd be happy to have a go. If you have a raw file then so much the better. Just upload to your webspace or stick it on Rapidshare or something. Personally I only ever shoot raw.

EDIT : I just looked more closely at your photos on Flickr and I noticed you have different settings for sharpness reported in your EXIF. Some say "Hard" and some say "Auto". As I shoot Canon I have no idea what those settings mean. By shooting in raw instead of jpeg you get to chose how to sharpen and by how much after you take the shot. That's why I'd rather look at a clean raw file than a jpeg that has been mucked about with by the camera settings and then fiddled with further by a human.

I'm no expert and unfamiliar with Nikon but a few points,

If we take 'copy 10' as a random example.

The ISO is at 800 yet the shutter speed is only 1/320 so I'm presuming it was a fairly dull day? It will be very hard to catch a sharp image of a jumping horse with 1/320 shutter speed, they move faster than you think.

I see you have the camera set to 'sport' mode, I would try shutter priority set to 1/640.

If you focus on the jump the jump will be in focus, focus on the horse, preferably the head area. Try to pan with the horse just before it jumps.

Ideally you want the horse at full strech, so you need to start snapping continuously just before it jumps, you may waste 1 or 2 shots just before it jumps but practice will get this number down.

The other problem with small shows is they have small jumps and the horse is not fully streched. The higher jumps result in a better piccy due to the upright stance of the horse.

I'm sure if you do a search here, Hacker has already done a very good small tutorial on this subject a while back.

EDIT;

Taken at the weekend, this is not a good image but posting as a guide to the streched look.

Copy 10 was shot at 135mm and f/5. At a guess I'd estimate the distance to the horse to be around 80'-100' or so. If we call it 100' the DOF would be 34'. With stats like that you're going to get the horse in focus regardless of whereabouts on the fence you focus. At 80' subject distance the DOF is still 22'. I see no problem with manually pre-focusing to avoid problems with AF getting confused.

As for shutter speed, I doubt there is that much movement of limbs etc. once the horse is in full flight. In motorsport people pan all the time at relatively slow shutter speeds in order to emphasise movement. I would have thought that panning a horse at 1/250 should be enough to keep the majority of the animal sharp, even if the hoofs show a touch of blur, if they are flailing. But I don't know horse photography, so maybe it is very different from motorsport as far as panning and shutter speeds are concerned.

A thought has just occurred to me. Does the lens have a filter fitted? If so, take it off and try again. This sort of softness looks very much like the kind of effect you can get with a poor (or even a good) filter fitted. I don't know why some shots look fine. Maybe it is the way the light was and some shots have flare losing contrast and hence apparent sharpness, while other shots are clean.

Since some shots are sharp I think it needs closer analysis to spot trends in terms of ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focal length, sharpening settings vs the results. I'm afraid that from Flickr it is way too time consuming for me to give that a go. It's clear the camera/lens can produce good results so it's hard to say why the failures are occurring, especially based on highly shrunken and compressed JPEGs.

Actually, on closer analysis, it looks to me like the fence is sharp, as are the people standing on the other side of the horse. There is ample DOF and the focus is in the right place. It looks to me like the problem here was possibly a failure to pan with the jump. Clearly a higher shutter speed would address a problem like that, but is it the right solution for this problem? I'd prefer to see a pan to generate a better sense of movement with some background blur. Clearly f/5 is not doing much to generate separation from the background so perhaps some panning blur will help. These tiny jpegs are not making it easy to spot what is going on though. I'm sure an unedited original would be more revealing.

I understand that horses are not the same as cars, but here is an example of panning a vehicle at high speed. The fencing does nothing to help IQ and does reduce contrast, but overall the car is fairly sharp considering this was shot hand held at 1/100 with the lens at 190mm on a 1.6X crop body, making it equivalent to 304mm. Panning does take practice, but I would have thought 1/320 wold be OK for a horse performing a slow jump.

Panning a vehicle is different to panning a horse, cars don't jump 6ft fences when you pan them.
The vertical movement comes into play when photographing jumping horses.

You need a faster shutter speed for horses - or greyhounds, otherwise their feet dissappear as they flick them. You end up with sharp horse, but legs that end with a blurred, amputed hoof!

Lensflare said:

You need a faster shutter speed for horses - or greyhounds, otherwise their feet dissappear as they flick them. You end up with sharp horse, but legs that end with a blurred, amputed hoof!

Click to expand...

As long as I didn't find it (or the head) at the bottom of my bed that wouldn't bother me

thanks guys, espec Tdodd- i hope you're a quick typist!
i'm planning to read thru properly when kids are in bed & i can concentrate!

Don't thank me yet. It seems those who know more about shooting horses than me (I know nothing at all) think you'll need a faster shutter speed. Good luck

Hacker would be the best person to ask about horses

Hi i think the 400d nedds to be Alservo to constantley focus, as well you could look for a lens with IS features two mode: mode 1 stabilizes in both the horizontal and vertical axis while mode 2 only stabilizes in the vertical axis and is thus designed for panning. hope this helps and gives a good excuse to get a new lens

Regard Mark.

It's a Nikon, not Canon. I did not notice before but the lens is a VR lens. You are right, at least with Canon kit, that unless the lens has a panning mode then IS should not be used for panning. The IS (VR) tries to fight with the panning motion and you get nowhere fast. Whether the Nikon lens has a different design from Canon in that regard I do not know.

this has Auto panning detection, i know nothing of Nikon gear, come to that i no nowt about canon either.

A peice from the blurb : Features of Nikon 200mm F2G IF-ED AF-S VR Nikkor Lens
Nikon 200mm F2G AF-S VR Nikkor Lens has VR performance with Automatic detection of panning VR On/Off mode available IN Nikon 200mm F2G IF-ED Lens.

here as well look under headline features.


Time for a happy pill

Regards Mark.

I've just bought the Manfrotto 682B monopod which has the three small legs. Along with the 488RC2 ball head, it works really well for panning.

If you are using a Nikon VR lens then there are two modes of VR to use.

First you can turn the VR on or off depending on what you are doing. I stillpan traffic stuff WITHOUT VR, because I get better results!

However, ACTIVE mode is meant for moving subjects shot FROM A MOVING PLATFORM - so boat to boat shots, helicopter to boat shots, moving car to car moving, that kind f thing.

NORMAL mode is for when your subject is moving but you are on firm ground. However, in the case of horses jumping you have an anomally, in that they may be generally going across the frame, but they also go up and down and this throws the whole system.

If you have horses racing up the hill to the finish line at Cheltenham, for instance - VR can work. But it can also blur everything. I am not convinced by it for everything yet - because having had the 70-200 for some time (18 months or more) I am still trying to get to grips with when it will work happily and when I am better doing it myself......too much technology for a dinosaur.

Apologies tango, I haven't been around much due to other commitments. To shoot a moving/jumping horse (or anything moving for that matter) you will need to set the focus switch to AF-C and track the horse as it is approaching the fence, remember to keep panning until you have finished your shot(s). I would start with about 1/500th as a shutter speed and remember to switch your VR off as it won't do any good at that shutter speed, it's really designed for eliminating camera shake at low shutter speeds.

Once you have got used to tracking the horse you can start to experiment with trying different focus points. In the following image which I took on Tuesday I was using AF-C 21 point dynamicfocus with the focus point set between the horses eyes. I set up the focus point prior to the horse approaching as I knew roughly where the horse's head would be during the jump, it was then just a case of tracking the horse as it approached (with the focus point between the eyes) and firing the shutter at the optimum time. This shot was taken at 1/320th f/5.6 ISO6400.



I would write a more detailed reply but I'm knackered at the moment!

Lensflare said:

If you are using a Nikon VR lens then there are two modes of VR to use.

First you can turn the VR on or off depending on what you are doing. I stillpan traffic stuff WITHOUT VR, because I get better results!

However, ACTIVE mode is meant for moving subjects shot FROM A MOVING PLATFORM - so boat to boat shots, helicopter to boat shots, moving car to car moving, that kind f thing.

NORMAL mode is for when your subject is moving but you are on firm ground. However, in the case of horses jumping you have an anomally, in that they may be generally going across the frame, but they also go up and down and this throws the whole system.

If you have horses racing up the hill to the finish line at Cheltenham, for instance - VR can work. But it can also blur everything. I am not convinced by it for everything yet - because having had the 70-200 for some time (18 months or more) I am still trying to get to grips with when it will work happily and when I am better doing it myself......too much technology for a dinosaur.

Click to expand...

His lens is a 55-200..the VR mode on those is either on or off. In this case its better, as Hacker said, off.

Thanks for all the info, I’m going to photograph a horse show this weekend so I’m swotting hard. I usually shoot kids, not kids on horses….but they know that.


Mark- Quote- Nikon 200mm F2G AF-S VR Nikkor Lens has VR performance with Automatic detection of panning VR On/Off.
.. sounds like a good lens. mine is a 55-200mm VR 4-5.6 & much cheaper so doubt it has panning detection.
Some of the shots i panned (my 1st attempts at panning) & some werent so the VR could well be partly to blame.

I’d forgotten I’d switched to sport mode for a bit.
In manual I was mainly ISO 400, but Sport mode was ISO720 or 800.
As for the Hard & Normal sharpening, I hadnt noticed that; on manual it was normal & apparently Sport selected hard. I would use PSE to sharpen if needed, not use the camera.

Fabs- thanks for the monopod recommendation, sounds good- another thing on the wish list.

Tdodd- I shoot jpeg, intend to start raw soon, its just another thing I need to learn that I havent got round to yet. I ordered cs3 last night so that’s going to make me.
These flickr pics arent edited in any way at all, except I cropped a few in windows explorer. I edit & resize in Photoshop Elements 5.
I see no problem with manually pre-focusing to avoid problems with AF getting confused.
I’ve not done manual focussing so maybe should stick to AF, at least for the horses cos I want to get some decent shots.
How would I manual focus on a horse that isnt there yet? I could pre-focus on the jump but then that would be in focus not the horse, which is what I did with AF?

The lens does have a Hoya 52mm UV filter fitted ? I don’t really grasp filters, so I just leave it on all the time.

Hacker- you too are a genius, I had read your past tutorials and stuff, very useful.
I set up the focus point prior to the horse approaching as I knew roughly where the horse's head would be during the jump……..
I’m not sure I know what you mean by set up the focus point - do you mean, focus on jump, hold shutter halfway way, press focus lock, then move camera round to find horse & track?


My conclusions so far;
Check on continous focus AF-C
Use higher shutter speed 1/500 or 1/640 ish
Turn VR off if panning
Practice

if you are in doors in a equestrian center a controlled environment with strong lighting try it with the filter off, for say> under fluorescent lighting ..or if you are outside shooting into or at the sun as this can produce flair or ghosting, (Kood Filters are inexpensive and very good) Hoya glass

the canon has settings in white balance for sun, shade, flash, fluorescent, but if you shoot in RAW you can alter these as well, TBH you could try Burst as the horse starts it's jump, to get it just right, takes time patience and a wee bit of luck, if you are really close would panning cause problems, there is a good article in last months photo-plus Brett Harkness >shots of Tuscan horse race, he fired off three frames @1/250 to freeze the action, he say most would have gone higher, but he wanted to show some movment of the horses legs, then adjustments in photoshop

Sounds great horses are wonderful animals, my favorites are the shire's mt family had them many years ago when we had a scrap merchants,

OH happy days

Regards Mark.

tango said:

I’m not sure I know what you mean by set up the focus point - do you mean, focus on jump, hold shutter halfway way, press focus lock, then move camera round to find horse & track?

Click to expand...

I've just checked and the D40 has three focus points which are rectangular shaped and you can see them when looking through the viewfinder. You can select which one by making a half press of the shutter and then use the Multi-Selector to choose the appropriate focus point. If I had been using the D40 for the picture I showed earlier I would have selected the right focus point as this would be towards the top of the frame when in portrait orientation thereby allowing me to concentrate the focus on the horses head, as the horse approached I would place the focus point on the subject and keep the shutter half pressed to allow the AF-C mode to track the horse as it is moving.

In summary:
Switch VR off.
Select AF-C.
Select your focus point.
Keep the shutter half pressed when tracking the moving subject until you fire the shutter.
Job done and picture in the bag.

Hope this helps.

tango said:

Tdodd- I shoot jpeg, intend to start raw soon, its just another thing I need to learn that I havent got round to yet. I ordered cs3 last night so that’s going to make me.

These flickr pics arent edited in any way at all, except I cropped a few in windows explorer. I edit & resize in Photoshop Elements 5.

I see no problem with manually pre-focusing to avoid problems with AF getting confused. I’ve not done manual focussing so maybe should stick to AF, at least for the horses cos I want to get some decent shots.
How would I manual focus on a horse that isnt there yet? I could pre-focus on the jump but then that would be in focus not the horse, which is what I did with AF?

The lens does have a Hoya 52mm UV filter fitted ? I don’t really grasp filters, so I just leave it on all the time.

Click to expand...

Don't be afraid of raw. With the right software it can be very straightforward to work with and can take almost no effort on your part to convert to JPEG if you don't want to get involved much in detailed editing. If you shoot raw you can always create a JPEG from it. If you shoot JPEG then you're stuck with it. I switched to raw just two weeks after getting my 30D and could not believe how simple it was. That was two years ago. I have never looked back. It's raw all the way for me.

Focus is basically just about setting the focus for the right distance. It does not matter if the horse is "not there yet" so long as you know where the horse will be when you want to shoot it, or more accurately, how far away it will be. It doesn't matter whether the horse will be in mid air or not (unless you are shooting upwardsd from directly beneath the fence); you just need to find something as far away as the horse will be and focus on that. If it's at a fence you can focus on the fence or on the ground close to the fence - basically wherever you want the sharpest point to be. You might assume the horse will jump over the middle of the fence, so focus about on the middle, rather than the near fence post, although maybe you should actually focus a foot or two closer than middle to allow for the width of the horse. If you know the horses tend to jump the fence towards one side or the other, then adjust to suit. If you're shooting the horses jumping as they come towards you then you may want to shoot when the horse's nose is past the fence by a couple of feet. If you stay focusing on the fence then you should have the rider sharp but DOF should also cover the horse too. If you really want to concentrate focus on the horse's face then simply focus on the ground a couple of feet closer to you than the fence itself.

Unless you're using very fast glass - f/2.8 or faster - you will probably have enough DOF that the exact focus is not critical. It is better to have a preset focus that is (almost) perfect than to have a struggling AF trying to keep up with the horse and failing for whatever reason. AF is the perfect solution, when it works. When it doesn't, improvise. People spend a lot on cameras and lenses to get fast, accurate AF for difficult, fast movnig subjects. There are times when entry level consumer grade equipment will struggle to the point of failing to deliver the goods. You can play around with some figures to calculate DOF at various combinations of camera body, subject aperture and focal length, here....

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Here's an example calculation for a D40X with the lens at 135mm and f/5 and a subject distance of 80'....



Note that the DOF covers an area from 9.5' in front of the focus point to 12.4' behind. I know of few horses over 21' long If you were to focus on the fence, even for a head on shot, you would have a perfectly sharp rider and the horses snout and hind quarters would all be in focus too. You would not need to worry about AF tracking performance, or holding a focus point on a specific spot and would be free to concentrate on framing and timing your shot rather than limiting yourself with AF focus points. Also, if you AF on the front of the animal you are effectively wasting the DOF that extends in front of it.

If you shoot JPEG and edit/save/open/edit/save repeatedly your IQ will gradually diminish as you keep recompressing your original file. Some software, such as Lightroom, does not touch your files at all but just makes a record of the adjustments you want to have made to the file. Other software may not be so forgiving. When you shoot raw your original file should always be preserved and you can go back and re-edit over and over again, or start over from scratch, with no problem at all.

There are many threads on the internet about people suffering IQ problems with filters fitted. Here is one example from these forums....

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=61214.

IMHO a hood is a far better means of protection than a filter. It reduces/eliminates flare and, since it does not stand in the way of the light you are interested in, can not affect IQ negatively. It also helps prevent sticky/greasy fingers (yours or anybody else's) accidentally smearing onto the front optic, whether it's a filter or the lens itself, as you bustle through a crowd. I have UV filters for all my lenses and I no longer use them. I only use a CPL when the conditions or my artistics wishes demand it.

I would have selected the right focus point as this would be towards the top of the frame when in portrait orientation thereby allowing me to concentrate the focus on the horses head, as the horse approached I would place the focus point on the subject and keep the shutter half pressed to allow the AF-C mode to track the horse as it is moving.

sorry, i'm being thick & confused now, i understand the 1st bit, select right focus point.

in your pic, the horse approached from the right then jumped, which direction are you pointing the camera in when you focus- above the jump or to the right where the horse is coming from? when you say focus on the horses head, do you do you mean where it is or where its going to be?
are you talking about MF or auto focus?

that sounds confusing, sorry!
Assuming i want to focus around the horses eyes as it goes over the jump, how do i pre-focus? i'll be trying to focus on nothing but sky?

so do you think it will be better to pan or to just sit/stand by one jump and focus where it will jump?

bearing in mind i've never used manual focus, i guess i need to learn quickly.
I get the idea, twiddle lens until green dot appears, just not sure that i can do that with moving targets, aarrrgh.

hoya filter now removed, will use lens hood.

slightly off topic, do you think i'll be able to get some decent shots with my D40x & a 55-200mm f4-5.6 VR. been reading past mags today & they say 'event photography' requires a fast f2.8 lens & clever camera to track properly?
I'd love a 50-200 or 70-200 mm f2.8 - i'd rush out tomorrow and get one but they're over £100 dearer in jessops than elsewhere. anyone know of a good stockist in surrey/sw london, do let me know.
I'm worried my equipment wont be good enough. the horse show on monday could lead to more work for me if i can do some decent shots that sell.

horses jumping- for a day, would you use tripod or monopod or hand held?

thanks you guys, tried to practice panning today with my dog, but she refused to run about & just sat to me!

tango said:

sorry, i'm being thick & confused now, i understand the 1st bit, select right focus point.

in your pic, the horse approached from the right then jumped, which direction are you pointing the camera in when you focus- above the jump or to the right where the horse is coming from? when you say focus on the horses head, do you do you mean where it is or where its going to be?
are you talking about MF or auto focus?

that sounds confusing, sorry!
Assuming i want to focus around the horses eyes as it goes over the jump, how do i pre-focus? i'll be trying to focus on nothing but sky?

so do you think it will be better to pan or to just sit/stand by one jump and focus where it will jump?

bearing in mind i've never used manual focus, i guess i need to learn quickly.
I get the idea, twiddle lens until green dot appears, just not sure that i can do that with moving targets, aarrrgh.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you are getting confused with but I'll try and explain it further and go back to basics.

1. AF-C mode (Auto Focus Continuous) is best used when photographing moving objects. When your camera is set to AF-C and you focus on a moving subject, for example a horse running towards you, the focus will stay on the animal so long as your shutter button is held half way down. In other words, the camera will keep re-focusing as the horse moves but you must remember to keep your shutter button held half way down otherwise the focus tracking will stop.

2. Forget trying to pre-focus, put that thought out of your head now! If you pre-focus you have only a very small window of opportunity to get the horse in focus at the optimum time i.e. where you have pre-determined the focus point to be and the chances are you will miss the shot.

3. When in AF-C mode focus on the horse at it approaches the jump, the further from the jump the better as you will settle into a rythm and track more easily. When you first get the horse in the view finder half press the shutter and keep it half pressed, this will allow the camera to constantly adjust the focus to keep the horse clear. As you are tracking the horse you will probably feel, see and hear the auto-focus working, as you see the horse begin it's jump fire the shutter. You should try and practice this before Monday so you are familiar with how it works, use your dog or any moving subject, you could even just focus on the end of your garden and then pan the camera towards a point nearer to you - this will let you watch the AF-C function without having to worry about tracking a subject.

4. With regards to your lens/camera combo there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to get good shots particularly if the event is outside. I use a fast lens as a lot of my work is indoors in poorly lit arenas and I need the wider aperture.

5. Don't use a tripod, it will slow you down and restrict you too much. Also not a good idea when you've got half a ton of horse charging about - sometimes you need to move quickly! I use a monopod but some of my shoots can go on for eleven hours with one short break so I need all the help I can get!

Hope this helps.

yippppeeee, the penny has dropped & a decent nights kip cleared the head a bit too.

its hard on here to know what people know, in my case, not a lot, so back to basics is good.
All of you are soooooo helpful, it is much appreciated.
i will post some shots next week so you can see how i get on.
i have been practising panning in the garden, to see if i can do it smoothly.
thanks ,have a nice weekend

Hacker said:

2. Forget trying to pre-focus, put that thought out of your head now! If you pre-focus you have only a very small window of opportunity to get the horse in focus at the optimum time i.e. where you have pre-determined the focus point to be and the chances are you will miss the shot.

Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that pre-focusing is THE way to do it, just an alternative to consider. If for whatever reason you are not getting the results you need with AF then there is another approach that might work. I can imagine that finding focus on the face of a black horse on a gloomy day when it is travelling at speed will be a challenge for any AF system, but more so with a slow consumer zoom lens on a consumer body. If the AF works then all well and good. If it doesn't then pre-focusing may be an acceptable solution.

As I understand it we have not yet got to the bottom of the random softness in the photos - is it the filter, the focus, the shutter speed, the panning technique (or lack of), the shutter release technique, use of VR etc. etc.?