A tripod is an excellent idea, but not for taking images of moving horses. A tripod restricts your movement too much.

If you really need additional support for your camera, a monopod (one legged tripod) is of more use and much less restricting. You can of course use a tripod as a monopod, but it'll be a much heavier combination to carry about.

The next time you watch a football match on TV, have a look at the professionals on the edge of the field. If they have any support at all, it'll be a monopod.

There is some truth in this, but not much. These auto modes turn the camera into nothing more than a P&S camera, which is probably not why you bought a Pentax Kx in the first place rather than an Optio.

If you want to learn about photography, auto modes do not help. They may well get the shot most of the time, but when they don't, you'll need to go through each one to find out why it went wrong.

It is perfectly acceptible to use some automation, like Tv mode, auto focus, auto metering, etc. But please don't make the camera try and do everything for you. It will get it wrong sometimes, but you'll not learn from it. If you get the settings wrong, you'll learn what mistakes you made and be informed enough to correct those mistakes, next time out.

I think I've worked out what happened. I had previously searched for members starting with M, so I hit the M tab, did my search, found what I wanted, then went back to looking at posts.

When I went back to 'Members Search' > Forum Posts > descending > Go, I did not notice at the time that all those names listed began with the letter M (Mike_P, Mannesty, Mattmatic etc).

I'm thinking that my browser (Firefox) probably cached the previous search . . . maybe. Anyway, it's working as expected for me now.

Odd. I just checked again, and it's all back again.

Community tab > Members search > Total Posts > Descending > Go

Where have all the top posters gone?

Mike_P is now top poster with yours truly in second place. JR, Stefan, seem to have disappeared from the top of the stats.

Firstly, Tv mode sets the aperture automatically, you need to set the shutter speed manually. You may need to increase the ISO a bit more than 400 under certain conditions. You can always change it quickly if necessary after taking a test shot or two, and reviewing them on screen.

When I mentioned flash earlier, I was referring to the onboard flash. You need to make sure it's not going to popup and go off unexpectedly. As I'm sure you are aware, horses generally don't like flashes and it could be dangerous to horse and rider if one becomes startled.

I would recommend setting the file format to RAW. RAW+ saves both a RAW and a JPG image, and will use up your cards faster. You can always convert your best images to JPG later.

Paradoxically, I tend to shoot RAW+ at horse shows nowadays, mainly because we can now print them at the show, and JPG files are faster to deal with in that scenario. Then if any need, or would benefit from, some serious post processing work, we always have the RAW file as well.

As you'll probably not be printing on site, RAW is best in my opinion.

Welcome to the forum Chloe.

I've taken many hundreds of images at horse shows including jumping, ridden, in-hand, and dressage.

Of your two lenses, you'll likely need the 50-200mm more than the 18-55mm.

You'll need to set shutter priority mode (Tv) with a speed of at least 1/320th second to freeze the action of horse jumping. Other disciplines can be shot with a lower speed. Unfortunately, your kit lenses may only be of use outside in sunny conditions as they are relatively 'slow' lenses. Others having a maximum aperture of f2.8 are much better, but expensive.

In poor lighting conditions like cloudy overcast days, you'll need to increase the ISO setting to 400, 800, or even 1600, but be prepared for slightly noisy images at the higher settings.

For indoors, you may need to increase the ISO even further, or invest in faster lenses.

Set the white balance to an appropriate fixed setting rather than auto white balance (AWB). I recommend setting it to daylight for everything, you can make corrections in colour casts later.

AF-C or AF-S focus modes will be best.

You must not use flash, so if your camera (I'm not familiar with the Kx) has an auto flash mode that causes the flash to popup in low light, turn it off.

The images of jumping horses which have the most impact are of them taking off, into the jump, rather than at the crest or on their way down to landing.

Lastly, shoot RAW, either .PEF or .DNG, not .JPG, you'll have more correction opportunities in post processing with raw files.

Hope that helps.

I don't think you'll find a DSLR + lens combination that is anything other than weather/spalsh resistant (WR) unless it's in a properly sealed waterproof housing.

I think you'll need to look at buying a compact that is waterproof to whatever depth you need, and preferably one that floats if/when you drop it into water.

Checkout the article about the Pentax Optio WG-1 GPS model in the adverts on the right. There is a chart listing several cameras that the makers claim are waterproof to 10 metres.

Probably the best dry cleaning system available is the Arctic Butterfly from Visible Dust.

A Rocket blower will, as others have said, simply move the dust to somewhere else in the camera. It's not likely to remove it.

The Arctic Butterfly relies on a small electrostaic charge on its nylon brush, achieved by spinning it a few times using its built in motor. The charge attracts the dust, removing it from the camera.

For very stubborn contaminants, like sticky pollen, you may need to resort to a wet cleaning solution. Eclipse fluid and Pec-Pads seem to be the most popular, but Pentax also has their own wet cleaning system.