Better Focus

These are from last weekend at Tampa Bay Downs. When I covered the high school girls soccer championship games I noticed that the still photographers shot using auto focus. Believe it or not, I had barely tried the auto focus on my fancy pants (read: $2,000) lens. So I shot races using auto focus.

It worked. The photos came out in focus. Unfortunately, auto focus won't cure poor framing or bad timing. A lot of the shots just missed being really good. Running horses look elegant only in that moment when all four of their hooves are off the ground and gathered under them.

If only I could have snapped the shutter at one of those moments. I think if I shoot just JPG instead of JPG+RAW, the camera will let me shoot faster.

And after going through the effort to create and upload the slide show I realize that I had not included a couple of my favorite shots. After the race, the jockeys and other people connected to the horses (trainers, walkers and the like) walk along the track back to the paddock area.