Well, I had a great time and it was way more than I thought. I had thought it would be a few hours and no bigger deal than my horse shows. Whoa, was I wrong!! The ring went from 9am to 6:30 pm!!!! At least on Thursday and Saturday. Friday was done by 4 as there wasn't any sweeps classes.

I shot about 3500 photos and trashed about 1200. I screwed up the white balance(my fault, believed the LCD screen) and had to hand touch all photos. BLECH.

Sales have been ok. I was able to more than pay for my trip including my entry fees, motorhome parking, gas and my shopping spree in the building So, for a first practice run, it was all good(well, mostly)

Julie,
If you shoot raw, then screwing up the white balance is no problem as you can change it after the fact. Nice photos and glad to hear it worked out for you.

I know, but, it is very very rare I mess up wb. This was just a big error. Processing 3500 raw files as a rule is way too much for my computer to do, especially on the road.

I don't like the Oly converters speed and I don't like ACR's colors, and I *do* like the Oly jpg engine, so, as a rule I don't use RAW.

Though, in this instance, it would have been better to have been able to get a correct white balance and batch processed them. I will just get it right in camera next time.

Julie,
if you do your processing in PS or Elements, Pictographics has a couple of plug-ins that do a nice job of color-balancing jpegs and they are easier and faster to use than ACR and RAW. Once you have your neutral white set, you can process a bunch of images very quickly. If you prefer to shoot jpeg, then take a look at their products.

Keep in mind that sometimes, you can't get it right in the camera (or, at least not quite right). When the lighting is a combination of several different sources, none of the White Balance settings will work. I had that problem in Perry and the only solution was to shoot RAW and set the color balance in processing. And, because the dogs would be in different parts of the ring, the lighting would change from shot to shot. In that instance, there is just no substitute for adjusting each shot.

Nice images and I'm glad you at least broke even (with shopping included ).

Jim

Bibble will also WB JPG's.

I trusted the LCD view on the color(big mistake) and yes, I do know what you mean by the changing color temps. The Knoxville show is like that. I swear it has 4 different types of lighting and some HORRIBLE paint schemes that even make it worse!

I don't mind shooting raw, I just have a hard time getting my resultant jpgs to have the color the jpg engine gives. Well, I can get it from the Oly software, but, the writer of that should be shot for making such a piece of slow junk!

I will look into bibble and such. I usually make my life harder. Wouldn't want to be easy

I am really pretty pleased that I have made as good of sales as I have, considering it was a fairly casual thing. I had permission of the OP to shoot the whippet ring, but,I was really there as a club representative

Dang, re the WB issues. I always shoot RAW too, just in case...sorry about the retouching headache!

Otherwise, kudos! Images look great, and keep us updated on the show sales progress!

It is a pain for sure having to retouch each one. Also when the lights cycle and one frame in a burst can be blue and the next gold! Nice images though Julie, what lens do you use and would you mind sharing your EXIF info? Curious what ISO, etc you were shooting at.

I shot at 800 ISO and used the 35-100(= 70-200 fov in full frame) f2, at f2.

It is one of those live and learn things. Thankfully it was salvageable. I am amazed how well the 800 ISO files held up to the amount of processing I put them through. Virtually no noise at all and that is a big thing for Oly!

Yes very little noise on these! They look good. When I shoot indoor shows at ISO 800 and f1.8 it does well with noise but I still get a bit of blur with the movement shots, around the legs anyway. Not always but often. Did you have many blurred? The moving whippet here looks like no blur.