Soccer

scarysharkface

Played around with shutter speed and other miscellanea yesterday at my son's soccer practice...







John

And yes, I'm an idiot for not putting this in Sports. I thought I had. <:P

Mod, please move this to the correct forum...

donek

I'd turn the camera verticle and increase your shutter speed more. There's still motion blur on the later shots. Add a long lens and you'l really struggle. The horizon/ verticle is off on the last shot.

Mitchell

I'm not sure what you mean by played around with your shutterspeed.

What were you trying to accomplish? These just look blurry to me.

scarysharkface

I wanted the blur so they didn't just look static. I'm really fond of the top one, which turned-out like I was hoping. I was trying for the longest useable exposure I could get. How might you approach this differently to still strongly imply motion? What I specifically want to avoid is tack-sharp frozen action. And thanks for the feedback (and please keep it coming)..

John

sportsshooter06

scarry person

tack sharp is the answer

good luck

scarysharkface

sportsshooter06 wrote:

scarry person

tack sharp is the answer

good luck

Forgive me for disagreeing, but tack-sharp is definitely not the answer. Read my previous post. Perhaps "Sports" isn't where this belongs.

John

Ann McRae

Maybe what you should give a try to is panning? Bicycle photogs do this frequently (and car photogs) and the result is to totally blur the background and following the player across a certain distance.

I think you either want more blur or less, the amount here can be interpreted as an error, rather than a pleasant effect.

I would also suggest cropping the first shot in portrait orientation, much tighter, open space in front of the player.

Thanks for sharing. I have never tried panning, nor can I recall an example using soccer to point you to. Keep trying, and show us the results please.

ann

scarysharkface

Ann McRae wrote:

Maybe what you should give a try to is panning? Bicycle photogs do this frequently (and car photogs) and the result is to totally blur the background and following the player across a certain distance.

I think you either want more blur or less, the amount here can be interpreted as an error, rather than a pleasant effect.

I would also suggest cropping the first shot in portrait orientation, much tighter, open space in front of the player.

Thanks for sharing. I have never tried panning, nor can I recall an example using soccer to point you to. Keep trying, and show us the results please.

ann

Panning is definitely one thing that will help. The kids weren't moving terribly fast, as it was just them doing drills, so probably this might be easier at a match where they're really moving. Ultimately what I want is reasonably sharp faces and blurred appendages, which would require me developing panning skills and keeping shutter speeds slow. I'm not worried about framing so much at this point as much as finding a sweet-spot between panning, shutter speed and aperture that I can work with to get these things. Other people do this and I used to be pretty good at it with the old F1n and Tri-X back in the day, but it's been a long time (and a few career changes) since I've had an SLR up to my face..

This is the first time I've shot (or tried shooting) sports with a still camera in probably 25 years!

I'll keep experimenting as opportunities present themselves. If anybody has anything similar that works (or cares to experiment along with me), I'd appreciate hearing about it and seeing the results.

Thank you!
John

SoonerShawn

I understand what you are trying to do, the problems with the 1st image, assuming it turned out somewhat like what you wanted, are these: Your the image is severly over-exposed causing the harsh skin tones, and the blown whites. Also the image is tilted a little to the right.

scarysharkface

SoonerShawn wrote:

I understand what you are trying to do, the problems with the 1st image, assuming it turned out somewhat like what you wanted, are these: Your the image is severly over-exposed causing the harsh skin tones, and the blown whites. Also the image is tilted a little to the right.

Yes. Too much light is a bad thing (never thought I'd have THAT problem!). I don't think it's so much an exposure thing as it is a blur thing, since that kid has very light skin. Other shots at the same settings from that series aren't overexposed.

Actually that shot's pretty close to level. The edge of the field isn't straight or level. Visually though, yes it looks wonky and at this point Generally speaking, I'm still fighting getting shots level through the viewfinder. I wear glasses and it's a struggle to see the edges of the frame sometimes. I've got to work on that.

What range of shutter would you use for something like this? Also, image stabilization on or off? I had the camera's ISO cranked down to 100..

I would really like to see how the rest of you folks would do what I'm trying to do. That would help considerably.

Thanks,
John

tjk60

John, while I agree with the others, ultimately it's up to you what you shoot. You definitely have an issue with the first shot and the face being grossly over exposed, it's way to hot. This will only become worse when it's the only 'focal' point of the shot.

Panning is really the only way you are going to accomplish what you want, I think.

Get positioned so that you are parallel to the player, and pan with them. Meter off their face, for people (especially young ones) you'll need a very slow shutter, and in bright sun your camera may be maxed out even at the lowest ISO. if so, look for a ND filter, or depending on the sun position, a CP could work.

Practice your panning on cars in slower neighborhoods...

Also nail the exposure on the faces to improve the overall look of your pics, it's all about the faces...

scarysharkface

tjk60 wrote:

John, while I agree with the others, ultimately it's up to you what you shoot. You definitely have an issue with the first shot and the face being grossly over exposed, it's way to hot. This will only become worse when it's the only 'focal' point of the shot.

Panning is really the only way you are going to accomplish what you want, I think.

Get positioned so that you are parallel to the player, and pan with them. Meter off their face, for people (especially young ones) you'll need a very slow shutter, and in bright sun your camera may be maxed out even at the lowest ISO. if so, look for a ND filter, or depending on the sun position, a CP could work.

Practice your panning on cars in slower neighborhoods...

Also nail the exposure on the faces to improve the overall look of your pics, it's all about the faces...

Thank you.

Which neutral density filter(s) would you recommend? Also, I'm guessing an ND filter might mess with the autofocus (in general terms) but that it shouldn't be an issue with lots of light?

What is a CP?

In terms of exposure, is it best to under-expose a bit (one stop, perhaps) as a rule to avoid blowing out highlights?

Again, thanks for the info.

john

z28ken

CP = Circular Polarizer

scarysharkface

z28ken wrote:

CP = Circular Polarizer

Thanks.

John

Seefutlung

Hey, having shot a ton of sports ... i like what you did with the blur. #1 has too much blur, #2 and #3 are better. Unfortunately, not enough isolation of the players makes the images sub-par ... but this was just practice for you and the team. I'd try it again wide open with a longer lens for isolation ... minimize handshake with IS (if you got it) and a monopod (if you got one). You could try getting really creative by going with a very slow shutter and giving the camera a quick circular twist at the moment of shutter release while panning with the player (not an easy task). (This technique gives those circular streaks on the edges of the frame while the center is reasonably sharp.)

tjk60 is on-the-money with his follow-up recommendations.

Gary

scarysharkface

Seefutlung wrote:

Hey, having shot a ton of sports ... i like what you did with the blur. #1 has too much blur, #2 and #3 are better. Unfortunately, not enough isolation of the players makes the images sub-par ... but this was just practice for you and the team. I'd try it again wide open with a longer lens for isolation ... minimize handshake with IS (if you got it) and a monopod (if you got one). You could try getting really creative by going with a very slow shutter and giving the camera a quick circular twist at the moment of shutter release while panning with the player (not an easy task). (This technique gives those circular streaks on the edges of the frame while the center is reasonably sharp.)

tjk60 is on-the-money with his follow-up recommendations.

Gary

Cool. Thanks greatly!

John