From a distance

[donaldjledet]

What can be done to get the horses better light?

nikkor 70-300 4.5/5.6g iso- 400 shutter 1/1600 oev 1.0.0

Higher iso or slower shutter speed.?

 

[Marcel]

Both, you could go 1/800 and iso 640. It seems you exposed for the average where your main subjects were in the shadow. The fact that the foreground is predominant also reinforces the darkness of your main subjects. If there was more trees and less foreground, the horses would look lighter.

Have you tried to recover the shadows in post processing? You could probably recover the shadows, crop a little more to remove the excess foreground and you might have a better balanced picture.

 

[nickt]

If you are in manual, you could do either. Everything will lighten though. If in A,S or P, changing the iso should not lighten or darken the picture, the exposure will readjust to keep it looking the same.
If you were in manual mode, lowering the shutter speed would lighten the horses (and everything else), same with raising the iso. But if you were in S, lowering the shutter speed would just change the aperture to compensate and keep the scene looking the same.
Assuming you were in A,S or P mode, you could have dialed in +1 or +2 exposure compensation OR you could have spot metered on the horses. Both of those would lighten everything. You could also lighten the shadows in processing. Shooting raw would give you more to work with.
I have my preview button programed for spot metering, so for a scene like that I can quickly spot meter.

 

[wev]

If you will forgive the impertinence, I fiddled a bit with your image. I cropped it down, opened up the shadows, reduced the blue cast, and bumped up the saturation a touch. I have nothing to brag about at PP, but I think this is a bit closer to what you were shooting for. With the original and more time and expertise, it could be improved upon.

 

[Lawrence]

^^^ Good job

 

[WayneF]

What wev said, including the crop, but the big thing is that it is underexposed. Look at its original histogram. the bright data does not extend to near the 255 right edge, but stops about 190. For starters, it needs more exposure, at least one stop, via wider aperture, or slower shutter, or higher ISO.

 

[Steve B]

Lower your shutter speed, don't increase your ISO unless you have to. Since you have a D7100 you can also use the 1.3x additional crop mode (equals a 2x crop overall) to get rid of some of the light foreground. Looks like it is backlit from the left which is going to make it hard to get color and detail on some of the horses (like the one on the right) without blowing out the highlights.

 

[donaldjledet]

Yes Thanks Guys,
I was in aperture mode.
Will have to see about Programming the spot meter mode.
Also trying to get really good without the P.P.
Would like to do it rightout of camera.
If that's at all possible.