It's in the eye of...

StevenV

As a photographer, I look at these shots of high school volleyball and think "ugh - noise, blur, no contrast... I hate these!"

The girls' parents look at them and say "those are great pictures!"

*sigh*

from http://miltonsports.smugmug.com/gallery/824731/1/36831591

Sarah

gouldphoto

I know the feeling
Steven,
I shoot alot at the drag strip, the pictures and composition that I like in no way reflect what the car owners like and are purchasing. Go figure, but based on talking to a few of them I have learned what they like. And talking to some of the parents of the junior racers, they are just thrilled to have shots of the kids racing.

So, keep shooting.
It really is all in the eye of the beholder.

Steve Gould
www.gouldphoto.com

StevenV wrote:

As a photographer, I look at these shots of high school volleyball and think "ugh - noise, blur, no contrast... I hate these!"

The girls' parents look at them and say "those are great pictures!"

*sigh*

from http://miltonsports.smugmug.com/gallery/824731/1/36831591

Sarah

StevenV

gouldphoto wrote:

... And talking to some of the parents of the junior racers, they are just thrilled to have shots of the kids racing.

Yup, that's why I keep posting them - I know that a parent would rather have an out-of-focus blurry picture of their kid than no picture at all. It bugs me, though, to have such "bad" pictures in my portfolio for other photographers and editors to see

Netgarden

Hi Steve, I remember trying to photograph my daughter playing in dim gyms. [she should have played beach ball like her mom, lolol, much better light! ha]

By any chance to you have PSP9? That program has been wonderful in the noise/low light situations. I hit Brightness/Contrast, choose Clarify once, go to the noise reduction effect, and click once, and it pretty much turns a decent picture into an awesome one. It has some great tools for photos, and for as little as $80 you can't beat it. I have an old version of Photoshop and never use it anymore. If you want me to try your photo in it I will.

Gosh I miss the Vball, and yes, I wish I knew then what I know now about photos! ;~)

StevenV wrote:

Yup, that's why I keep posting them - I know that a parent would rather have an out-of-focus blurry picture of their kid than no picture at all. It bugs me, though, to have such "bad" pictures in my portfolio for other photographers and editors to see

StevenV

Netgarden wrote:

By any chance to you have PSP9?

I'm a PS guy, and I just this evening tossed those volleyball images through Neat Image to see how it helped; it did a pretty good job, going from this


to this

(the size difference is just in my cut/paste for this post)
(I've not yet updated the images on my smugmug site)

Thanks for the offer. If you've got time, I wouldn't mind seeing what PSP does with it.

Nikolai

Steven,
Do you mind enabling EXIF in that gallery?

My youngest plays volleyball, too, so I'm kinda curious to compare results.

Although even without EXIF it looks like you very using much longer tele (I was using 18-55 kit), and your gym was much better lit than our Teen Center..:-)

Thanks!

StevenV

Nikolai wrote:

Do you mind enabling EXIF in that gallery?

[IMGR]http://img345.imageshack.us/img345/4101/vballgallerysettings1lg.jpg[/IMGR]Ya know, I must be doing something wrong. I could've sworn that it was on for all my galleries, but it's not. And even when I do enable it, sometimes it still doesn't show.

Ah, looking at the deatils (both online directly and locally via Exifer, it looks like there's nothing there. I must have done something wrong when I saved from Photoshop (these were shot in RAW).

Here's a representative of the settings I used that day, and this is with a Canon 10D and a Sigma 70-200/2.8:

http://miltonsports.smugmug.com/gallery/824731/1/36831960
http://miltonsports.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=36831960

shutter: 1/180
aperature: 2.8
ISO: 1600
Focal Length: 200
Flash: did not fire


Does that help?

Onrey

Hey StevenV, first I want thank you and Andy for your help lastnight. I will soon be shooting the end of VB season here and have been asked to shoot the girls Varsity Basketball season @ home games. you may or maynot know this and I don't realy know how true it is, But I read either here on SM or FM or SS Forums that gyms may seem to have decent light however each light cycles and recyles so much that it actually makes it difficult to shoot inside a gym. Did you find this to be true or not really notice? Since I will be doing this soon does anyone have any opinions/suggestions/tips ? nice shots btw, hope you get them cleaned up.

StevenV

Onrey wrote:

each light cycles and recyles so much that it actually makes it difficult to shoot inside a gym. Did you find this to be true or not really notice? Since I will be doing this soon does anyone have any opinions/suggestions/tips ?

The discussion I've seen about that had to do with white balance, that some lights varied color rapidly (too rapidly for humans to notice). If you were shooting a subject that was mostly lit by one lamp, one shot might look red and the next frame look yellow and the next be perfect. In a gym with "enough" lights, it would all average out.

I've not seen that problem myself, just read about it (as you say, it was here, sportsshooter.com or dpreview.com but I don't remember which).