Critique Desired: help with making good football pictures better

[Ellen Schwartz]

i am attaching some pictures from a varsity football game last saturday. i have been taking pictures of both jv and varsity all season, not only to capture great action shots of the kids but to kind of give a snapshot of the whole game experience. i have been posting the pictures weekly on shutterfly, so the the parents and the kids can see them and i am putting together photo albums for the kids who want them.
i would like to make the school sports photography a side business and would like the pictures to be the best they can be-- i was using a rebel until last week when i had to get a new camera. i am now shooting with a canon 40d and a 70-300 4-5.6.
i am struggling a bit with getting shutter speed, aperture and iso in synch. i want the pictures to pop. the kids and parents love the pictures, but realize they could be so much better. please help.

[Ellen Schwartz]

[Ellen Schwartz]

Originally Posted by Ellen Schwartz

i am having trouble attaching the pictures, so am trying again--

[Ellen Schwartz]

what am i doing wrong?

[Nill Toulme]

They're not coming thru Ellen. What's an example of a URL you are inserting? It needs to have a pic-format extension like .jpg, and they need to be on a server that's web-accessible.

Nill

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Ellen,

This is what you loaded, for example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31843198@N05/2983298720

There needs to be a.jpg

You can drag your picture from your Flikr page to a new browser window

For example look at this page for an image of the size you want:

http://flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/2486020665/

then drag a picture to the a new browser page

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3096/...291ed3.jpg?v=0

the url we want just ends with the .jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3096/...b4b9291ed3.jpg

So if we insert that between [IMG] and [/IMG]

we get:



Paris Exposition: Chemistry and Machinery, Paris, France, 1900

Paris Exposition: Chemistry and Machinery, Paris, France, 1900. Rolling chairs. Paris Ex. Angle of Chemistry and Machinery near Chateau d'Eau. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection (S03_06_01_015 image 1948).

I hope that helps!

Asher

[Ellen Schwartz]

[Ellen Schwartz]

[John Angulat]

Good morning Ellen,
I'll try to keep my suggestions on the less "technical" side, as I think you're struggling with a number of frustrating issues. Hopefully I (and other more experienced shooters) can just get you pointed in the right direction.
I believe there's some basic elements of sports/action type imaging you need to get your arms around:
Basic Composition, whether as captured in the camera or by selective cropping when you edit. Separate the subject. Learn the rule of thirds.
Depth of Field - I see some good separation of the subject from the background. I think it could be better. That's going to be dependent on your aperature/lens & lens focal length. Remember, the longer the lens, the shallower the DOF. Remember, the larger the aperature, the shallower the DOF. Just by opening the aperature will neccessitate a faster shutter speed, thereby keeping you able to stop action.
Shutter speed - As with DOF, you've got that one down pretty good also.
ISO - I wouldn't be too concerned at this time. If you're shooting outdoors, keep it at 200 for the bright days, 400 for the cloudy, dark dreary days.
With all that said, I think you are a bit limited by using the "kit" type zoom that came with the camera. A 4-5.6 speed lens is not going to allow you much flexibilty. You really need to consider getting something in the 2.8 range. They're pricy. They're heavy. But you will not be disappointed.
Lastly, please do leave your camera set on "auto". Select Shutter priority and learn how this works. Chose the speed (250 or faster to start with) and get out there and practice. Shoot over and over again. Try different settings, see how they work.
I hope this helps a bit.
Best,
John
http://www.lightsimage.com

[Ellen Schwartz]

i admit i had an addiction to the auto setting for years, but i quit cold turkey two weeks ago. i swear!!
last week's pictures were taken using aperture priority. i have been experimenting with shutter priority, but i can't seem to get those where i want them.
here are some attempts at shutter priority from a recent soccer game:
1/1000 5.6 iso 1600


and same speed, aperture, iso as before for this one:


i think i capture the action, but the face is not always light enough--whether because of shadow? or the camera setting? does that make sense? is there a way to address this?

[Ellen Schwartz]

[Nill Toulme]

Don't use shutter priority, use aperture priority. This lets you control DOF and maximize shutter speed. If you haven't already, study the Sports Basics sticky at the top of this forum.

I'll give you some more specific pointers on these shots when I get a chance, but right now I'm slammed and can't do it. But you're off to a terrific start!

Nill

[Bill Miller]

Go to http://sportsshooter.com Here is where most of the top sports photographers hangout.

[Ellen Schwartz]

thanks. i will check it out.

[Nill Toulme]

Originally Posted by Ellen Schwartz

...i think i capture the action, but the face is not always light enough--whether because of shadow? or the camera setting? does that make sense? is there a way to address this?

If these are straight out of the camera then they're not far off. You can always dial in a little + exposure compensation, or correct in post processing. Also if you're not shooting in sRGB, it's important to convert to that space for images meant for web viewing.

Here they are with tighter crops, a little levels adjustment, and 20,50,0 USM to add a little pop:

Does that seem any better, or not?

Aperture priority is the way to go when you're shooting auto exposure. Unless you want extra DOF for some reason, you'll usually want to shoot wide open or pretty close to it. If you use shutter priority, your aperture floats all over the place and you have no control. Control your shutter speed by adjusting your ISO as necessary. More here.

Nill

[Ellen Schwartz]

okay. thanks so much. the pictures i posted are pretty much right out of the camera, in that i don't get real technical with the post-processing. i do a fair amount of cropping though, and i now see i can go further with that. because of the volume of pictures i take between varsity and jv football games, i really just use iphoto to fix things up a little bit.
i know i can dial in more xposure with this camera but i don't know what 20,50,0 USM to add a little pop:
means. can you elaborate?

thanks again!!!!!

[Nill Toulme]

It's often referred to as "local contrast enhancement" or sometimes "haze reduction." You use unsharp mask (USM) with a very wide radius for an effect that, rather than sharpening, increases contrast in a way that is useful for many images. The standard starting setting for this process is Amount 20%, Radius 50 pixels, Threshold 0 levels.

Here's your portrait shot in more or less original form, simply cropped and converted to sRGB (which is probably what it was already):

It's a little dark, probably because of how your meter read the white uniform, so we hit it with a little levels adjustment to lighten it up a bit:

...and finally, with USM 20,50,0 applied:

Nill

[Ellen Schwartz]

sorry for the endless questions. hope i am not trying your patience.
i have loved photography for years but it is only recently that i have really come to terms with the fact the i'd better learn how the camera works if i want to get better.
so, just like standing on the sidelines of countless football games and really beginning to learn what a difficult game football really is, so it is with the camera--it is a vast and technical world out there.
my niche with the pictures is book/album making for those who order them. i will use iphoto to make the books. about 10 or 11 players have ordered already. we still have a couple regular season games and the playoffs to go before i start organizing the pictures in the books, so i have time to go back and do a better editing job on some of the pictures at least.
i have adobe photoshop 4.0, i think. it came with my rebel. that should be sufficient for making use of your suggestions i hope?

[Nill Toulme]

Yep.

Nill