Military picnic (questions?)

RevLinePhoto

I was at my squadron's picnic this weeknd and decided to try some action shots
First shot
ISO 1600
Shutter speed 1/640 sec
F stop 5.0
aparchur 5.0
vocal 34mm


Second shot
ISO 1600
shutter 1/200
aperchur f/8
focal 46mm


Third shot
ISO 1600
shutter 1/800
fstop 5.0
aperchur 5.0
focal 27.0mm


I was wondering what am I doing wrong. I had a polarizer on and the was on auto white ballance and I think that was part of the lack of any good color.

How can I take these better.

Ryan

Andy

lose the polarizer. a c-pl filter helps greatly with reflections (like in water) and also to darken and enrich a blue sky ... no need for a pl in situations like this ... you could have been at a much lower iso if you'd have dropped the c-pl

cheers

RevLinePhoto

Thanks for the tip. (if you saw my response before I edited it. I realized how lost I was and deleted it.)
Ryan

colourbox

What color space is the camera set to, sRGB or Adobe RGB? (If the Rebel has that choice. My Rebel XT does.)

RevLinePhoto

colourbox wrote:

What color space is the camera set to, sRGB or Adobe RGB? (If the Rebel has that choice. My Rebel XT does.)

It is set to sRGB.

Ryan

Higgmeister

Hi Papy,
Ah, squadron picknicks; the haircuts give it away.

What could you have done better. Under the circumstances, I think you did pretty well. Your first shot looks a little soft, could have been caused by severe camera shake, but you did catch the ball in flight. You caught some action blur which is nice. A more selective f-stop would have helped you isolate your subject more. All of the shots have busy backgrounds; shooting with a different f-stop or moving to isolate your subject would have helped. Another problem with #2 and #3 is that it's overcast so the contrast is down. A bit of post processing with curves or levels to kick up the contrast would help. Some selective cropping would also help accentuate your subjects.

From what others have said, watch your backgrounds and choose your f-stop carefully to help isolate your subject and yet keep it in sharp focus.

I like #2 the best because of the motion blur.

Thanks for sharing the memory,
Chris

Steve Cavigliano

Hiya Papy,

I agree with Chris, you did a pretty good job on these. As Andy pointed out, no need for the pol for these type shots and it cost you 2 stops of ISO. You probably could have gotten these @ ISO400 instead of ISO1600. You will notice as you increase the ISO setting, that not only will you notice more image noise but the dynamic range and color worsen also. Take some similar shots, without the CP and using ISO400, or lower,and I think you will like the color results a lot better

Also, most pics can benefit from some level of post processing. Even if it's just a touch of Levels or Curves and a bit of USM. This is really apparent when your histogram shows a hump in the middle with short tails to the right and left. If you spread this "hump" out using Levels or Curves, it will improve the contrast and usually the color too. :

Steve

RevLinePhoto

Thanks for all the tips guys. I didnt do any editing specificly to show what Im working with. Sadly I will have to wait another year for another squadron picnic but I do belive there is bowling and mabe some baseball comming up. I think bowling will be a huge challenge though.Thanks again.
Ryan