[beholder3]

I have recently received my DFA 70-200 (irresistible with the massive discount from 1900 to 1550 EUR) and had to find something to try it out.
So I went to a new type of event yesterday: Horse show jumping.

Here is the first set of images, focusing on HiF images - horses in flight. Due to the size of the flyers the focal range of the DFA is just about right.

[biz-engineer]

Excellent images, in focus and with the rendering of the DFA70-200. Congrats. Did you manual focus, since Pentax K1 AF is unusable for moving subjects (I was reading DPReview)?

[beholder3]

I forgot to bring my tripod and fix the lens on that, as is best practise for action shooting according to some of Amazons' Nobel prize winning outlets.
So I did rely on AF.

[snpsht]

Whadda ya mean you used AF? We all know K-1 AF doesn't do stuff that moves!

LOL

Nice shots!

[monochrome]

You are a bad, bad man.

[wissink]

Its not a bicycle, it should be fine. Very nice images. Do you find the framerate a hindrance? The only time I've really used spray and pray with the K3 has been at airshows. At my son's soccer games, I prefer trying to catch moments with good timing. I really dont' want to sort through that many images usually either.

[monochrome]

There's a place for high frame rate - catching a home run hitter mid-swing with the ball leaving the bat, for instance - but K-1 isn't the camera for that use. The AF is just fine using back button constant focus, camera movement to keep the focus points on the subject and release priority single shutter release.

[AquaDome]

Is that vignetting from the DFA 70-200 hood? Did you add that later?

[monochrome]

Is that vignetting from the DFA 70-200 hood? Did you add that later?

In his motocross series he said he likes to add vignette to his finished images. The 70-200 hood doesn't vignette on K-1

[beholder3]

Is that vignetting from the DFA 70-200 hood? Did you add that later?

As monochrome already said: no, that is not caused by the hood. I tend to add vignette to many types of images in LR

.

---------- Post added 11th Sep 2016 at 20:36 ----------

Do you find the framerate a hindrance?

No. It's absolutely enough for this subject. I did fire 2-4 shot bursts and always got decent results.
Here, again, the technical side is less the issue.

When analysing my results the key challenges are:
a) find a perspective where not everything in the background is crowded with ugly colored stuff
b) find an angle that is you your liking. For me it seem the straight on (0 degrees) thing is good for a handful of images and there also should be some right from the side (90 degrees), but the nicest ones are from 45 degrees to me.
c) find a old fashioned jumping obstacle which is not a large box (full of adverts) blocking view of large parts of the jumping horse
d) turn the camera corresponding to what I want to shoot. The 0 degrees shots are best made in portrait mode and full zoom. Many other best in landscape.
e) crouching low can help the perspective and background
f) a monopod helps

[carolina_sky]

You did extremely well, these are excellent. Have you shot any horse shows before? I've been doing it for a few years now, it's not so easy and these came out magnificent. I've been using the 150-450, which is superb, but the shallow DoF on the 70-200 at wider aperture makes for a nicer blurred background - gonna have to add that to my bag sooner or later.

[bxf]

I appreciate good sarcasm as much as the next guy, and I don't wish to imply that these photos are anything but good. But as far as the quality of the K-1 AF is concerned, for these type of shots, would it not be easiest to pre-focus on the jump thingies and then wait for the horse and rider to show up?

[micromacro]

What AF settings did you use?

[C_Jones]

Nice shots.

[beholder3]

Have you shot any horse shows before? I've been doing it for a few years now, it's not so easy and these came out magnificent. I've been using the 150-450, which is superb, but the shallow DoF on the 70-200 at wider aperture makes for a nicer blurred background - gonna have to add that to my bag sooner or later.

Thanks and no, it was my first show jumping event (actually two events on the same day). I had no idea the two venues were so close by where I live and also had no idea what to expect. It was a rather interesting experience. Probably I'll do that again.
Yes, that is why I shot all images wide open. The background in many images is rather distracting, so a lot of blur helps.

would it not be easiest to pre-focus on the jump thingies and then wait for the horse and rider to show up?

It's a very valid approach, but would need a lot of training and exercise as well. The moment when everything is right doesnt last so long...
The two extra challenges here in favour of me going with AF were:
a) I wanted to take multiple shots of the same rider at different obstacles. If I were going to use prefocussing I'd have had to finetune that via focus peaking and LV and that takes too long to change around all the time.
b) in full res 36 MPx it does make a difference where exactly the horse jumps in relation to the obstacle width and that is not predictable. So you'd loose sharpness in some images.

What AF settings did you use?

AF.C; hold=strong; Extended area S (1+8 fields); 1st AF.C image: auto; other AF.C images: auto.

Here are two at 45 degrees:





And two from the side: