A quick shoot with little Roly to test out my EF 100-400LII for horse photography

My mom and I took Roly out for a little run around in some of the fresh snow today – A good excuse to get outside and catch up a bit, while also getting some horse cuddles in. No riding with the weather how it is right now – but still a cool opportunity to try and take some action shots while Roly stretched his legs running around the outdoor arena!

I’ve been itching to try my EF 100-400LII lens with the horses. Overall so far I’m pretty impressed. The extra zoom makes it so much easier to get good detail even if I stand at the opposite end of the arena from the horse! Last year I primarily used a 70-200 LII, so this new lens has doubled my focal length! I still need to test it while someone is riding – but I think this lens will work wonderfully for me – especially in a show setting, where I can’t be standing inside the arena!

Naturally, Roly has not had a bath in awhile… being that it’s been winter here. Although the temperatures have been fairly mild this season, it’s still never a great idea to bathe a horse in the winter. They don’t dry off that well, and then they’re at risk of hypothermia if they go back outside even a little wet… all in all not ideal. So, Roly was a bit on the “yellow” side when we took him out today!

This got me thinking about editing in lightroom and what I might be able to do to fix the colours – a digital bath, so to say!

Check out this before and after:

There’s lots of different things I adjust when I edit. Overall, my goal is to have the image look as close to ‘real life’ as possible – while adjusting for any little things that seem to take away from the image as a whole.

Can you guess what I changed??

The biggest adjustment I made was toning down some of the yellow in Roly’s coat. Being a horse, he enjoys occasionally rolling in his own poop – resulting in a less than desirable yellow tinge over the winter due to the lack of baths. In this case I wanted to leave some of his natural red and grey flecks, but eliminate some of the staining. I am overall very happy with the effect!

I also removed some of the boogers from his nose, and I managed to take out the top fence rail to improve the overall composition! Big changes like this aren’t always possible, but it worked out well for this photo!

Lightroom and Photoshop are such powerful tools. I’ve been learning that photography is definitely not just about taking nice pictures. Half of doing well in photography is having a good eye for editing and post work.

Also, I just have to say – doesn’t Roly just have the nicest hair ever?? I mean really – look at how photogenic his mane is, with the white steaking underneath. So majestic!

Overall it was a short – but very fun! – session. We managed to get lots of nice photos, and i’m very happy with the performance of my zoomier lens and my R5.

Getting very excited for show season!!