Some roller derby shots (with my new d7000)

Molotov Everything

Really old, wanted to take down links.

John Patrick

OK, my comments.

First, a general one: Why are you shooting shutter priority? It looks like even lighting throughout; set a manual exposure and be done. That way the darker uniforms won't throw off the exposure, and you can sit at f/2.8 all the time to help knock-out the horrible backgrounds if required.

OK, specific comments:

1) Good action, but soft. 1/200th is WAY too slow for this type of action. Need at least 1/500th to stop it.

2) Background kills the shot. Appears you were standing; getting lower would help get granny out of the background.

3 & 4) Why landscape? Unless you're shooting tight (which you aren't), this is a portrait shooting sport; get the whole body in (unless shooting tight, in which it works either way).

5) Would have trashed it. You're in the wrong spot for a start.

6) Sometimes you don't need a face, although I would have done a waist-up shot if you were really trying to emphasize the name (but I have a feeling you weren't).

John

Scott293

John Patrick wrote: »

OK, my comments.

First, a general one: Why are you shooting shutter priority? It looks like even lighting throughout; set a manual exposure and be done. That way the darker uniforms won't throw off the exposure, and you can sit at f/2.8 all the time to help knock-out the horrible backgrounds if required.

OK, specific comments:

1) Good action, but soft. 1/200th is WAY too slow for this type of action. Need at least 1/500th to stop it.

2) Background kills the shot. Appears you were standing; getting lower would help get granny out of the background.


3 & 4) Why landscape? Unless you're shooting tight (which you aren't), this is a portrait shooting sport; get the whole body in (unless shooting tight, in which it works either way).

5) Would have trashed it. You're in the wrong spot for a start.

6) Sometimes you don't need a face, although I would have done a waist-up shot if you were really trying to emphasize the name (but I have a feeling you weren't).

John

Well said..... There's a lot more to shooting sports than trying to shoot low light and not getting noise. Every shot is very soft and not sharp at all. As John said # 5 is just a bad shot. You need to look at how other people shoot tight and crop tight you have to much garbage in the background try shooting more vertical and keep shooting, practice,practice thats the best way to get better!!

Molotov Everything

Yea I noticed when I was going through them afterwards that everything was on the soft side and I found myself asking a few times "why didn't I shoot this portrait?" when I end up with that awkward framing with part of their shins in the shot but no feet so I'll definitely be working on that next time, thanks for reenforcing that. But at least I feel like I've improved by leaps and bounds since last year when I first tried it, I looked at some of my shots from last year and just thought "god these suck, what was I doing?" Part of that was really not having the right gear (F/3.8-5.6 with a pop-up flash? Stupid.) but the bigger part was not really thinking about what I was doing and just winging it.

If I was shooting landscape, what do you think, just try to frame from the waist up? That's what I'm thinking.

I've also been comparing myself to the 'competition' (3 or 4 other people that regularly shoot the same teams in the area) and it seems like it would be in poor taste to post links to their stuff here but would it be kosher to, say, PM a willing volunteer critic here with links to mine and their stuff (from the same bout) for an objective comparison?

Also, what I think I'm going to do, since I clearly do need more practice, is ask the teams if I can come to their practices and shoot. They typically practice twice a week but the bouts are so scattered around, there's 3 teams within an hour of me and the next actual bout isn't til June 18th, then the next one some time in July, and I'm not going to get much better just shooting once a month.

Wanted to throw in one more shot: how's the framing on this one? Do you think I need to go even tighter than this or is that on the mark?

Icebear

You're getting there, but you made a comment that puzzles me. You indicated that you didn't want to shoot at f/2.8 all the time. OK, I understand that "all the time" might be a little uncreative, but you REALLY have to get your shutter speed up there. If I were in your shoes, I'd set that sucker on f/2.8 and bang away. You'll deemphasize the BG, and will be much happier with the crispness.

Molotov Everything

Icebear, I felt like before this bout shooting with the D80, I was shooting 2.8 all the time because I absolutely had to, like I was fighting with my gear all the time just to get passable shots. So it was just kind of liberating I suppose to not feel held back or restrained by my equipment, there was some novelty to it I suppose. Next time I'm definitely going to try putting it on manual and just leaving it at 2.8 like people are suggesting though.

Zerodog

What ISO were you rockin? You have the best high ISO DX camera on the planet. Use it. Get that thing up there. I bet you can get away with 6400. Remember noise can be manageable in PP. Motion blur is not. Try shooting f4. You have more than one subject so you need some DOF. Or if you want to pin point one subject, then go 2.8. Your tight shot is your best shot. You gotta get the faces.

torags

Hmmm... A lot of them are soft. Are you using 51 pt? if yes don't

Try shooting manual @ 2.8 7 ss 800; set the iso on auto max 1600. See what happens. Hike up your EV if necessary

I've shot roller derby a few times on a raised banked track. I had the advantage of being able to shoot from a low point. You didn't have that advantage.

Better background? they're all junk. I shot from inside and outside. You won't get much subject separation even with 2.8, it's too close.

Frankly I wasn't happy with any of my images, too much junk (inability to separate without arms & pieces of legs in the frame). I shot 3 nights, posted them for free for the participants. After a few months deleted them all

Hope you have better luck - keep shooting

torags

Edit the previous post:

I found some on my hard drive. The combatants were the San Francisco Bombers and the Brooklyn (somethings).

This time I was using a 85 1.8. Most of what I shot was SS100; too slow, it didn't stop arms

This was at f2.2 ss 160.

2 f2. is too wide, dof blurred second roller, when they were involved in the same activity (fight). I would use f4 for multiple rollers

3 This is the Brooklyn manager (an old skater)

4 Pretty violent


Bottom line, I think SS200 is fine, they're not fast (their arms can be). I believe I used f4 at the next meet. My iso ran from 1000 - 2200 on a D700

Zerodog

Maybe I have some sort of haze on my lenses. In indoor events I regularly am pushing ISO 10,000 and 12,800 to get my shutter speeds up. But that is way up too. I would guess from environment the OP shot he would need 6400 to get somewhere in the area of 1/500

torags

Zerodog wrote: »

Maybe I have some sort of haze on my lenses. In indoor events I regularly am pushing ISO 10,000 and 12,800 to get my shutter speeds up. But that is way up too. I would guess from environment the OP shot he would need 6400 to get somewhere in the area of 1/500

I think you're right.

But after review I think you can get by at SS160 - 200. These folks are not flying by. Most of the activity is to slow fast skaters down. I was expecting speed skating, but got more jostling & fighting.

Molotov Everything

Yea I was shooting at iso 3200 and 200SS so I think if I wanted 500SS I could go to 6400iso and some exposure compensation at that rink. The other rink I've been shooting at has worse lighting than this one so I'll just have to figure that one out when I get there. Most of the time f/2.8 worked out fine but I did occasionally have DOF issues when 2 girls were side by side right up in front of me.

Torags you touched on a point I was kind of wondering about, how you can end up with fragments of people poking in to the frame very easily. Here's an example: I cropped it to try to showcase the 2 girls leaning on eachother, but there's two girls on the left side behind them. If I cropped it in even tighter on the 2 out front, the girls on the left ends up as just a floating arm and jawline. So I decided to crop it so all 4 girl's faces were in the frame.
Would you have just cut off the 2 girls on the left?

torags

From my point of view, yup you did the best you could. It's not an easy shoot

Good luck

Molotov Everything

Well next time I'm hoping I'll do even better and be more impressive. The girls loved the photos but obviously they aren't as scrutinizing as Dgrinners are. My goal now is to be the best roller derby shooter in northern New Jersey (if I'm going to make a goal for myself might as well set the bar high so I can perpetually disappoint myself) so I'll carry the advise given in this thread with me to the next bout on the 18th and let's see if I improve or not.

Zerodog

So you went 3200? You were on the right track, next time go higher. I have seen very impressive results at 6400 with the d7000. So many people are so afraid to push ISO. Noise is fixable and not as bad as motion blur. Falling back on it is not ideal, but it is all a compromise. Get some more noise to gain some shutter speed. If you expose right on, noise will not be as bad. If you need to correct the exposure in PP, it will be more apparent.

Zerodog

Molotov Everything wrote: »

Well next time I'm hoping I'll do even better and be more impressive. The girls loved the photos but obviously they aren't as scrutinizing as Dgrinners are. My goal now is to be the best roller derby shooter in northern New Jersey (if I'm going to make a goal for myself might as well set the bar high so I can perpetually disappoint myself) so I'll carry the advise given in this thread with me to the next bout on the 18th and let's see if I improve or not.

Keep at it you will get better. Indoor action is really hard. If you get good at it most anything will be much easier.

shphotos

Thanks for sharing your derby photos. I had never cropped anything landscape because I agree with a previous poster that derby really calls for portrait. You want to see the skates. However, after I saw yours, I tried this one:



cropped like this:



And I only occasionally like shots from behind (usually because of the skater names).



In this case, I'm glad my teenager (not in the picture) plays junior derby for the blue team and not the purple team. Let's hear it for keeping it classy.

johng

not sure if anyone else pointed it out but - in addition to bumping up the ISO to get reasonable shutter speeds I would also tone down the saturation - it's a bit too much.