New Video – New Shoes for the Horses

The wonderful anachronism the horseshoe is our topic today!  The act of putting making and putting on new horseshoes is one of those dying arts.  There are fewer and fewer places where this is done on a regular basis.  So, I felt lucky to have the chance to watch the big event while I was at that ranch recently.

I made the video part of this with my D3S (see my Nikon D3S Review for more).  I really love how this camera is so easy for shooting video.  I used the Nikon 50mm 1.4 prime to shoot all this footage, although it probably was not necessary to use a lens like that.  I probably could have gotten the exact same footage (and depth of field) with the more flexible 24-70mm.

Daily Photo – Doug and the Horseshoe

Whenever earn would press the burning-hot horseshoe into the foot of the horse, this smoke would billow up in an amazing cloud. The reason they do this is to see how the shoe fits before going back to make a few adjustments. The whole process was awesome to watch, as you can see. I felt like I was time traveling!