Have you been having trouble with your images of horses? Does the horse’s head look elongated and silly, and does his body look disproportional? You may be using too short a lens on your camera.
[box type=warn]If you photograph a horse while standing very close and with a short lens, say 28mm or 35 mm or even 50mm, you will get results like this:[/box]
The short lens distorts the image. Horses‘ heads are already long and so are their bodies. If you want a humorous image, then by all means use your short lens close up. But if you want a quality conformation shot, I recommend going to a longer lens. The longer lenses compress the horse’s body and head and make a more pleasing representation. I recommend using at least a 100 mm lens and preferably longer, like 200 mm. If you like the flexibility of zoom lenses, one of my favorite lenses for shooting domestic horses is the 70 – 200 zoom.
In summary, to improve your photos of horses, use a longer lens and step back.