Crops are pretty tight.
Shoot with as large an f-stop as you can for isolation.
Leave some space for the action to move into or come from.
Thanks Zoomer. I had done not so tight crops before and it was suggested that I crop as tight as possible......guess the action will determine the happy medium....?
All shot with the largest f-stop on my lens (50-200/f2.8~3.5) most of these were around the 130mm/2.9 range, don't have any other faster glass other than my 50/2 macro, but that doesn't leave me as much zoom as I sometimes need and would have to crop to death for anything, lol.
Thanks for looking, I will post more next week if you care to see the difference and I will try to leave a bit more room for action.
Be picky about who you listen to for advice and look at the images that are displayed professionally on the net and in magazines. That should be a pretty good rule to follow for the most part.
There a lot of internet "experts" who really don't know all that much....like me barb
Good luck with it you have a good start, half the battle is won as the color and exposure are good and they are in focus.
This is by far the best IMHO. It's free of background clutter and freezes the action and exertion beautifully.
However I'd prefer the crop to have a little less space behind the subject and (if possible) a little more in front and also a tad more under the right foot so the gap to the ground is more evident.
Just want to 2nd Dub cubed. Pull it in a small amount on the left and pull it out and down to the right. For my taste, I like to see things not so centered. I like to see more space in the direction of the action, which in this case is the right side. If she was turned and waiting for a throw from the outfield with the action coming in from the left, then I'd put the space there. When the edge is too close to the direction of the action, either to or from, for me, it tends to cut off the story that the shot is trying to convey.
I think for the most part they are good. Exposure is on and colors are nice. I agree with what has been hashed over already about the cropping. You want to crop as tight as you can within reason. Leave a little wiggle room if a customer(if you sell them) wants to do a crop from say 4x6 to 8x10.
Actually...as I type that I realize you are using Oly....the 4/3 crop does make that a little different than what most people are use to. It's nearly an 8x10 crop to start with whereas a lot of sports shots lend themselves to 4x6.
I started out with Olympus and when I switched, due to shooting mainly sports I did find the cropping to be a little easier when starting with 4x6. So you just may need to shoot a little looser to give yourself more options when cropping.
The main thing when cropping as others have said is to leave a little more room on the side of the frame where "the action is heading into", if not it seems as though the action is "running into a wall".
Thanks Double B. I will try to shoot a bit looser and avoid any walls.....:bash
I did recently selll some photo's to a parent from another team who asked me to shoot her daughter. Funniest thing to me is after I gave her my card with my website, I got a phone call literally 3 hours after the game with mom in a panic as to why she didn't see her daughter on my site yet. I explained that I was not set up to work this fast, was at a meeting for another project I shoot for annualy and that I had 525 photo's to sift through. I got them done that night, shot her an email and then it took her 3 days to bother purchasing anything But I am sure we are all full of stories like that - she purchased 5 4x6's and I can see where shooting looser would have let the crop be better.
I am shooting a game tonight, hopefully the sun is out and good and there is a lot more action. Look for a new batch to critique in a few days.....
Nice job Lee. Nice and sharp photos and tight framing. You need a LITTLE more room but not much. Resist the advice to shoot loose. Keep shooting tight - it helps retain sharpness and detail. You want enough space for print cropping to 4x6 and don't forget about the 'bleed'. Otherwise keep it tight. Much better than loose. The major reason is - backrounds at youth sports events are terrible. They're ugly and distracting. For example shots 5, 9 and 10 all suffer from the backgrounds being too distracting. That's one of the toughest parts of youth sports - blurring those backgrounds. You want to use your lens at it's longest focal length and widest aperture to blur that as much as possible.
As an example. Now you might not be able to get this amount of blur with your current gear, but shooting at widest aperture and largest focal length will max out the blur you do get.
Be picky about who you listen to for advice and look at the images that are displayed professionally on the net and in magazines. That should be a pretty good rule to follow for the most part.
There a lot of internet "experts" who really don't know all that much....like me barb
Good luck with it you have a good start, half the battle is won as the color and exposure are good and they are in focus.
Hello Mike,
I was just on your site looking at your landscape pics...wow is all I can say.
I am going to Yosemite on Tuesday, May 18th....Can you share with me how you can got such incredible shots yea, experience has alot to do with it and I am working on that one. Seems I always find a focus issue in my landscape stuff. I will be using a 1D Mark III with at 16-35 f2.8 canon lens and of course a tripod. Do you use single point of focus? What f stop, shutter speed, etc. Thanks for any direction you can provide.
Comments
http://dynamicsportsimages.com/
Sorry about that double b, it seemed fine last night when I posted it.....
I will take a look when I get home tonight and check if I can see any reasons for that, I can't see past my firewall at work to view the photo's
Thanks for trying....
Cheers
Lee
Shoot with as large an f-stop as you can for isolation.
Leave some space for the action to move into or come from.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21695902@N06/
http://500px.com/Shockey
alloutdoor.smugmug.com
http://aoboudoirboise.smugmug.com/
Thanks Zoomer. I had done not so tight crops before and it was suggested that I crop as tight as possible......guess the action will determine the happy medium....?
All shot with the largest f-stop on my lens (50-200/f2.8~3.5) most of these were around the 130mm/2.9 range, don't have any other faster glass other than my 50/2 macro, but that doesn't leave me as much zoom as I sometimes need and would have to crop to death for anything, lol.
Thanks for looking, I will post more next week if you care to see the difference and I will try to leave a bit more room for action.
Lee
There a lot of internet "experts" who really don't know all that much....like me
Good luck with it you have a good start, half the battle is won as the color and exposure are good and they are in focus.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21695902@N06/
http://500px.com/Shockey
alloutdoor.smugmug.com
http://aoboudoirboise.smugmug.com/
However I'd prefer the crop to have a little less space behind the subject and (if possible) a little more in front and also a tad more under the right foot so the gap to the ground is more evident.
http://www.vitaminv.smugmug.com
Actually...as I type that I realize you are using Oly....the 4/3 crop does make that a little different than what most people are use to. It's nearly an 8x10 crop to start with whereas a lot of sports shots lend themselves to 4x6.
I started out with Olympus and when I switched, due to shooting mainly sports I did find the cropping to be a little easier when starting with 4x6. So you just may need to shoot a little looser to give yourself more options when cropping.
The main thing when cropping as others have said is to leave a little more room on the side of the frame where "the action is heading into", if not it seems as though the action is "running into a wall".
http://dynamicsportsimages.com/
I did recently selll some photo's to a parent from another team who asked me to shoot her daughter. Funniest thing to me is after I gave her my card with my website, I got a phone call literally 3 hours after the game with mom in a panic as to why she didn't see her daughter on my site yet. I explained that I was not set up to work this fast, was at a meeting for another project I shoot for annualy and that I had 525 photo's to sift through.
I am shooting a game tonight, hopefully the sun is out and good and there is a lot more action. Look for a new batch to critique in a few days.....
Thanks for the help all.
Lee
As an example. Now you might not be able to get this amount of blur with your current gear, but shooting at widest aperture and largest focal length will max out the blur you do get.
Hello Mike,
I was just on your site looking at your landscape pics...wow is all I can say.
I am going to Yosemite on Tuesday, May 18th....Can you share with me how you can got such incredible shots yea, experience has alot to do with it and I am working on that one. Seems I always find a focus issue in my landscape stuff. I will be using a 1D Mark III with at 16-35 f2.8 canon lens and of course a tripod. Do you use single point of focus? What f stop, shutter speed, etc. Thanks for any direction you can provide.