Smalltown rodeos are great for photography. Because they are smaller, you can get closer to the action more easily than at a larger rodeo. I went to a rodeo on a late August Sunday afternoon in St-Albert, a short drive outside Ottawa Ontario. This event was scheduled through the Rawhide Rodeo Company and was part of the St-Albert Curd Festival.

Although the shooting conditions looked less than ideal because it was a bit rainy.  The overcast sky actually provided good even lighting as opposed to the harsh/contrasty lighting conditions of a sunny day. Less light however means shooting at higher ISOs than on a sunny day. All photos were shot with a Canon 40D with a 100-300 5.6L lens. Most photos were shot at ISOs ranging between 400-800 in order to be able to shoot at acceptable shutter speeds for this slow lens. In order to help with stability, I used a monopod.  The monopod helps to get better panned shots as some of the included shots

In order to protect the camera and lens I made myself a protective cover using a large Ziploc bag and an elastic band. This worked well because the rain was quite light. As with any rain cover however, it works better when your lens is an internally focusing lens. In this case, the lens was not an internally focusing lens, so focusing caused the plastic bag to twist with focus which can prevent achieving the right focus…

One of the problems with shooting this type of event is getting a good backgroud. Using a fast shutter speed and freezing the action would mostly yield photos with a subject having very little definition with respect with the background.  The subject would blend in with the background.   In order to prevent having clear views of spectators as a background, I like to use a panning technique to get a relatively clear image with a blurred background.

Here are some examples.  The first three photos were shot using parallel panning where you follow the subject’s motion while using a slower shutter speed.  Because of the relatively fast speed of the running horses, a slow shutter speed in this case means 1/125 sec.

Cowgirl on the run

Cowboy on the run

For more information on panning techniques refer to my article on ‘Slow shutter panning bike race photos‘

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Learn how to add a sense of motion in your sports photography by learning tips on slow shutter panning techniques.
I went out to photograph a Bike Race during the 2008 Italian Week in Ottawa (ItalianWeekOttawa.com) last weekend. The race, and my photography was unfortunately cut short because of a thunder storm with heavy rain. I did manage to get a few shots before the downpour.

In order to give a sense of motion in the photographs, I used panning at slow shutter speed. To be effective, these types of photographs usually need to have some parts of the image in focus, but you can also get interesting abstracts where nothing is in focus.

1 – Panning
Panning consists of following your subject during the exposure.
Start by following the moving subject in your viewfinder, press the shutter and keep following you subject with the camera until the exposure is complete. With an SLR, after pressing the shutter the viewfinder is blacked out during exposure so it may be difficult to follow through.
You can practice the panning technique by bringing up the camera but looking above it as you follow your subject, press the shutter and follow through.
Fortunately with digital cameras you can practice this technique and and make adjustments based on the results you see on your display.
There is a lot of hit and miss with panning so if you get a few good photos for every 20 shots you take, you’re doing ok.

2 - Slow Shutter speed
In order for the panning technique to be effective you will need to use a slow shutter speed on your camera. A good starting point is a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. The slower the shutter, the longer the streaks from the background will be but the harder it will be to have your moving subject in focus. Depending on the subject speed, your distance from the subject and the focal length of your lens you may have to adjust your shutter speed.

Tip 1: Make sure that you set your camera to Shutter priority (Tv) so that you select and control the shutter speed.

Tip 2: When panning avoid having white or bright objects in the background or foreground. Bright foreground objects can cause bright streaks into which your subject will disappear. For best results avoid objects in the foreground relative to your subject and try to position yourself so that you have a dark background throughout your panning landscape.

Tip 3: If your subject is within your flash range, you can underexpose your image and let your flash properly expose your moving subject. This should give you a sharp subject against a darker background.

Tip 4: When using flash you will have a ghost image of your subject when panning. To get more realistic results always set your flash for 2nd curtain sync. This will place the ghost image behind your subject rather than in front of it. (Ghost image in front of the subject looks odd)

Tip 5: If you want your panned subject to be in focus, make sure that you are panning parallel to your subject’s trajectory.

Tip 6: If your camera’s autofocus cannot focus on the moving subject fast enough, set it in manual mode and pre-focus to a point where you expect your subject to be at the start of the panning.

Here are some sample photographs taken during the event.
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