Photographing one of my favorite Olympic events: Equestrian Jumping at Versailles

When most people visit Versailles, they are there to see the building and the amazing gardens. 

Something like this...

...and this.

But if you look far in the distance you will notice something different in the background.

That is the venue for Olympic Equestrian events. And earlier today I was there to capture some photos of these athletes and their amazing horses.

As soon as I got to the venue, I got into a photo position and started capturing images. Even though there were a bunch of other photographers at the entry position (usually signifying that it is a great spot), I thought I might find better if I walked around. For one thing, I knew that the direction of the sun did not favor me here.

I walked most of the perimeter of the course trying different jumps and backgrounds. I framed this one to get the "Metropolitan" sign, since it is screams Paris, but actually thought it might look better cropped in tight.

Since I was once again shooting with the Canon R5 MKII, I had plenty of resolution to crop the photo to something tight like this. I was using the Canon RF 100-500mm lens for the long shots and the RF 24-70mm lens for the wide shots. I did not bring the bigger gear since I knew I would be shooting handheld and also knew that I might be walking around Versailles for a while afterwards and did not want the weight of all that.

After shooting with the long lens for a while, I thought I would switch to the wide lens. This particular jump was really close to the fence (where I could stand) and I thought it would be a cool wide shot. This was the first wide shot I took. It was good but I need to get lower to the ground to make it more dramatic.

This is what I was looking for. I really like how much more dramatic this is when taken from the ground level. And once again, I was using the pre-capture mode of the Canon R5 MKII to make sure I did not miss any shots.

I decided to take one image from higher above, to include some of the decorations around this jump.

Then I got down low once again. Whether you are a photographer or not, I think it is really interesting to see how much the composition changes from just a slight change of my shooting position. 

Then, since I am a classic ADD photographer, I got bored and wanted to try something different. And just like I have done at other Olympics in the past, I slowed the shutter speed of the camera to 1/50 of a second and motioned panned the rider (moved my lens at the exact same speed as the horse) as they went over the same jump.

I then lowered the shutter speed even more, this time to 1/40th sec and panned this rider as they passed by the Eiffel Tower jump.

Then I dropped the shutter speed to 1/30th sec and motion panned the same rider. The goal when motion panning is to get the face of the rider (and / or the horse) in perfect focus but blur everything else.

I saw this cool decoration made out of flowers and a topiary and thought it would be fun to try and get a pan as the rider went behind it. You know me, I am always trying to do something different. 

Because I was having a good day of shooting, I felt daring and dropped the shutter speed to 1/20 sec and panned some more.

I was really happy with my take rate. And for those of you wondering if it is because of the new camera, honestly I don't think so. I did not use the face or subject detection at all, but just had a steady hand today.

For the finals I switched back to a faster shutter speed (1/2000 sec) for the rest of the photos. 

I also switched back to the longer zoom lens to isolate the jumpers even when at a distance.

I see a lot of photographers here at the Olympics who are using long prime lenses (like the 400mm, 500mm or 600mm lenses), but I love shooting with zoom lenses so that I can shoot tight and wide to get very different images from one location.

After I was done, myself and some friends from USA Water Polo walked the grounds of Versailles. I took photos of them and then asked Greg if he could shoot a "real photo" (not an iPhone shot) of me. He did a pretty good job. (Photo credit: Greg M.)

As we were leaving Versailles, I saw the French flag flying on the building behind the front gate. I grabbed the Canon RF 100-500mm lens and shot this at 350mm to do something different from that location. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed to the main pool for the women's water polo game which is late tonight (starting at 8:30 here in Paris). We got to the media room here at the venue about 4 hours early so that I could retouch the photos and write this blog post. 

Au revoir for now.

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* Thank you to Canon, Apple, ProGrade Digital, Crucial, Tiffen, DataColor, ThinkTank, Adobe, and CameraBits  for providing loaner product to me for the Olympic Games!

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