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High School Track

73Rocks73Rocks Registered Users Posts: 147 Major grins
edited April 19, 2011 in Sports
Seeing as the weather is really on the cool side this spring a good portion of the local track meets have been cancelled. Knowing that my opportunities are going to be limited this spring I made it to one last week. The weather was less than ideal . . . temp about 42, variable clouds, and a little mixture of rain/snow now and then. But this season I am going to have to take my shots when they come.

Here are the best 5. Depending on the degree of cloud cover at the tme and the event I was shooting I went with a shutter speed of 800 to 500, ISO between 320 and 250, and aperture at 2.8.

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Thanks for looking.

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    donekdonek Registered Users Posts: 655 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2011
    5 (1/800) is a lot sharper than 1 (1/500). I think it's your shutter speed. 1/500 isn't really adequate to stop a long jumper. I keep everything above 1/1000 for track unless I'm purposely trying to blur things.

    You could definitely crop tighter in 2 and eliminate the girl in the last position. I tend to get lower, although your perspective does show who's in the lead.

    Nice High jump although the right hand is blurred due to your shutter speed again. If you stand a bit more to the right of where you are, you can get more of the face and show the clearance a bit better.
    Sean Martin
    www.seanmartinphoto.com

    __________________________________________________
    it's not the size of the lens that matters... It's how you focus it.

    aaaaa.... who am I kidding!

    whoever dies with the biggest coolest piece of glass, wins!
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    73Rocks73Rocks Registered Users Posts: 147 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2011
    donek wrote: »
    5 (1/800) is a lot sharper than 1 (1/500). I think it's your shutter speed. 1/500 isn't really adequate to stop a long jumper. I keep everything above 1/1000 for track unless I'm purposely trying to blur things.

    You could definitely crop tighter in 2 and eliminate the girl in the last position. I tend to get lower, although your perspective does show who's in the lead.

    Nice High jump although the right hand is blurred due to your shutter speed again. If you stand a bit more to the right of where you are, you can get more of the face and show the clearance a bit better.

    Thanks for the CC Sean . . . I always take any advice I can get.

    I was a bit rusty for track. As I said it is the middle of Arpril and because of the weather this was the first meet for me this year. That being said I should know by now that when shooting action in daylight it is always better to bump the Shutter Speed up rather than dialiig down the ISO. As for cropping, I process all my images in 4 X 6 format for my newspaper editor so unless I start custom cropping all my images I am going to be stuck with some unwanted space.

    The high jump shot was a little bit more of a challenge. The girl in the picture has a twin who also was jumping in the same event. They would always jump one after another. This would not be a problem IF they would both jump from the same side . . . one would jump from the left and the other would jump from the right. My problem was that becasue I can't tell one from the other I could not be in the right position to get the shot until just before they jumped (I did not want to be running around in the background trying to get the shot while they were aproaching the bar).

    Here is her twin jumping from the other side:

    1252634709_FfWfx6M-L.jpg

    BTW - they tied for 1st in the event so I still don't really know who even won.

    Again - thanks for the CC -
    Mark
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    donekdonek Registered Users Posts: 655 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2011
    73Rocks wrote: »
    Thanks for the CC Sean . . . I always take any advice I can get.

    I was a bit rusty for track. As I said it is the middle of Arpril and because of the weather this was the first meet for me this year. That being said I should know by now that when shooting action in daylight it is always better to bump the Shutter Speed up rather than dialiig down the ISO. As for cropping, I process all my images in 4 X 6 format for my newspaper editor so unless I start custom cropping all my images I am going to be stuck with some unwanted space.

    The high jump shot was a little bit more of a challenge. The girl in the picture has a twin who also was jumping in the same event. They would always jump one after another. This would not be a problem IF they would both jump from the same side . . . one would jump from the left and the other would jump from the right. My problem was that becasue I can't tell one from the other I could not be in the right position to get the shot until just before they jumped (I did not want to be running around in the background trying to get the shot while they were aproaching the bar).

    Here is her twin jumping from the other side:

    1252634709_FfWfx6M-L.jpg

    BTW - they tied for 1st in the event so I still don't really know who even won.

    Again - thanks for the CC -
    Mark

    They do have on different pants, but I see your issue. Sounds a bit confusing.
    Sean Martin
    www.seanmartinphoto.com

    __________________________________________________
    it's not the size of the lens that matters... It's how you focus it.

    aaaaa.... who am I kidding!

    whoever dies with the biggest coolest piece of glass, wins!
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    73Rocks73Rocks Registered Users Posts: 147 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2011
    donek wrote: »
    They do have on different pants, but I see your issue. Sounds a bit confusing.

    I will admit it . . . that obvious fact totally escaped me. I guess I was just trying to get too many shots of as many different events as I could that I forgot to concentrate on what was right in front of me.

    Good catch!
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    donekdonek Registered Users Posts: 655 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2011
    73Rocks wrote: »
    I will admit it . . . that obvious fact totally escaped me. I guess I was just trying to get too many shots of as many different events as I could that I forgot to concentrate on what was right in front of me.

    Good catch!

    mwink.gif Been there, done that.
    Sean Martin
    www.seanmartinphoto.com

    __________________________________________________
    it's not the size of the lens that matters... It's how you focus it.

    aaaaa.... who am I kidding!

    whoever dies with the biggest coolest piece of glass, wins!
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    attorneyjayattorneyjay Registered Users Posts: 78 Big grins
    edited April 18, 2011
    I agree number one is a real nice shot, but either unfocused or blurry due to insufficient SS. I'd crop it a hair tighter but I understand the newspaper editor issue.

    #2 is good, but needs tighter cropping. Also the center girl's eyes are averted which always diminishes the shot (face and visible eyes make a big difference).

    #3 is very good, especially since you can see facial expressions, including eyes, very well. I'd shoot it from down low too.

    #4 high jump doesn't look very dramatic because the camera appears level with the horizontal bar. Again, I'd get much lower when shooting. Need better shot of face. This is tricky because each high jumper may have a different move which requires you to adapt on the fly regarding shooting position.

    Last shot, long jump, is good, nice and low, but again either out of focus a wee bit or insufficient SS. I agree at least 1/1000 SS is best, although sometimes with high jump you can get away with a bit slower since their roll over the horizontal bar is relatively slow and graceful, kind of like a basketball player doing a layup - as he jumps his body slows down.

    This looks like a less than modern facility. Asphalt-looking track with spray painted lines? Long jump runway looks like something temporary laid down over grass? Just curious.

    Anyway, good effort. Keep it up and thanks for sharing.

    Jay
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    73Rocks73Rocks Registered Users Posts: 147 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2011
    I agree number one is a real nice shot, but either unfocused or blurry due to insufficient SS. I'd crop it a hair tighter but I understand the newspaper editor issue.

    #2 is good, but needs tighter cropping. Also the center girl's eyes are averted which always diminishes the shot (face and visible eyes make a big difference).

    #3 is very good, especially since you can see facial expressions, including eyes, very well. I'd shoot it from down low too.

    #4 high jump doesn't look very dramatic because the camera appears level with the horizontal bar. Again, I'd get much lower when shooting. Need better shot of face. This is tricky because each high jumper may have a different move which requires you to adapt on the fly regarding shooting position.

    Last shot, long jump, is good, nice and low, but again either out of focus a wee bit or insufficient SS. I agree at least 1/1000 SS is best, although sometimes with high jump you can get away with a bit slower since their roll over the horizontal bar is relatively slow and graceful, kind of like a basketball player doing a layup - as he jumps his body slows down.

    This looks like a less than modern facility. Asphalt-looking track with spray painted lines? Long jump runway looks like something temporary laid down over grass? Just curious.

    Anyway, good effort. Keep it up and thanks for sharing.

    Jay

    Thanks for the advice Jay.

    Yes, this is not that modern of a facility . . . just a small school with a tight budget that can't afford a new track. Some of the smaller schools in my neck of the woods make the best of what they have.

    I won't be able to share any pics this week . . . because of the weather all the meets have been cancelled again. That makes 3 out of 5 meets have been cancelled because of the weather and due to me being a shift worker I will have to miss even more yet this season. It's real frustrating but what can a person do?

    Thanks again.
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