Highland pony - and advice on photographing horses

I took my camera today when I went to sort out the ponies and no matter how hard I try, I never seem to be able to get good photos of them.

Marilla is an extremely pretty girlie, but my photos never really reflect just how gorgeous she is! So - those of you with horses, how do you get good pics?

Here are today's "offerings"

And a few which should probably have ended up on the cutting room floor - as I took these ones "downhill" and I think it always makes the ponies look really short-legged and stumpy ... which they aren't really

Well I think you've done fine there Kirsty, they're lovely pics! I think taking pics of horses is the same as drawing them, for some reason they say they are the hardest things to draw, so maybe the same goes for taking pics, but you seem to have mastered it there! Unless they're zooming around doing bronco's they don't really do a lot do they, only stand or graze!!! Maybe somebody else can hold the camera one day and we can see you sitting up there hey??

Love the 3rd and 4rth pics I think she is stunning And the wee guy (sorry I can't remember his name) has a cheeky wee face. Maybe you need to take LOTS of practice shots and share them all with us

Marilla truely is a stunner - I can see that she is from the photos.

What camera have you got and what settings do you use?

Always make sure the light is behind you, and try photographing them three quarters way onto you. Crouch down a bit especially for the shetland so that you aren't looking down on them in the photo.

I find with my camera that its much better in good light, and then I can up the speed setting which makes a much clearer photo.

It took me ages to get a good action shot without it being blurry!!

Fiddle around with your camera, get the handbook out again and play with all the settings - practise, practise!
If you want to do a head shot with a blurry background - set the apperture as low as possible, stand right back and zoom in.

Your not doing too badly as it is!

Thanks Helen - glad you liked them I have a couple of blurry pics of the pair of them doing zoomies around the field, but they definitely aren't worth posting!

Thanks Lynne. The shetland is called Strom Glad you like the piccies, and I do quite like the third piccie myself.

Thanks for all the tips Ravenwood. My camera is nothing special at all (and I am definitely going to get myself a decent one when I come into some money ) ... it is just a Samsung small thing!

Glad you didn't think they were too bad though Unfortunately I also have to reduce the size quite drastically to be able to post on forums, and I don't think that helps either, as all my shots seem to have a grainy quality! Oh to have broadband

Moobli

I played around with one of them for you.....

All dead easy on Picasa which is a free download

Moobli - you don't have to reduce the size of the photo at all to upload it onto here. What are you using?

Set yourself up with a Flickr account (easy and free) upload your photos to there. Then to download back onto here you just click on original, grap the link and post it. This forum automatically resizes it without loosing too much quality.

Most people seem to use photobucket but I much prefer Flickr - quicker and easier IMO

My daughter has a small Samsung and you can get really good pictures from it but experiment with the settings rather than use the automatic settings all the time

Have fun practising

PS: I admit though that with dial up whatever website you use is going to be slow

Awww beautiful, the third one is my fave.

I always search Flickr for ideas. You HAVE to get the famous special horse photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doug888...hrough_a_lens/