Myerscough 2013 - Monty Roberts Tour

Myerscough 2013

Myerscough is always a nice venue to film at. The layout is good for me, and they have plenty of electric sockets........and.....free WIFI! Bless their little boot encapsulated socks! Before we get started, the funny thing pointing at Monty in the Round Pen in the panoramic view above is the top of my camera (audio received). I didn't share the platform with a dale, although I felt that the technology was getting the better of me that night.

One of the important things to do when filming is to be as inconspicuous as possible. I had a really bad night of it. Almost falling of the tower while Monty was having the round pen meeting should have given me a clue to the rest of the night!

The next time was while prepping the Go Pro for the loading horses. It just fell apart in my hands! If that had been it, then I would have been happy, but Monty was again talking, but this time to a war veteran who was about to join-up with a horse. Yep, Palmer the clumsy! It's surprising how loud a small bit of plastic can sound!

 The wonderful thing I get a chance to do these days is also play with more of my kit than I used to. You can see on the right side of the picture, my D700 camera, attached to the Sony tripod. I had a wider lens on the body to give me more chance of catching the action. Only draw back is that this camera is a 10 MP camera. Next time, I'll switch to use the D800. With 36 MP, I'll be able to crop a little better, and not worry so much about getting the image centred. 

For the camera folks, the settings for the D700 working like this were ISO3200, Shutter Priority, set at 1/320 second. F 4.5 on the 24-120, and I arbitrarily set the viewing angle at 42mm to give me some, but not all of the round pen. Average metering, and nearest object focusing. I wasn't too worried about the exposure being under, as I shot using RAW, and adjusted the image on the computer. This is a spooky Friesian.

The only drawback with giving the camera the decision on the focus point, is that it can be anywhere, especially when using 51 points as you can see here. The camera selected the front hoof of the horse! But with sufficient depth of field from the aperture, I managed to get most of what was needed in focus.





Remember the spooky Friesian above? Well, in the demo, here's the final result. Lovely horse...

Finally, thanks to Myerscough for their generosity on the charity print. I know you are now at the top of the leader board for money donated to "Have A Heart".