High school soccer

zoomn

Hi,

Here are some shots from my nephew's high school soccer team. I'm striving to improve, so C&C would be greatly appreciated.

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5.


Thanks for looking!

jhefti

Hey Zoomn, those are some nice shots. You've captured some good action, and for the most part I cannot criticize the composition. I am looking at them on a not-so-good monitor, but the exposure seems a little high in a few shots, and the colors not quite right. However, this is just as likely my monitor as your editing. I also see that you are shooting in direct sunlight, which is difficult to expose correctly. One thing that helps me soften the harsh contrasts is to put in a little fill light in the post, and bring down the exposure a little. This will soften the the contrasts a bit, and bring out more subtle detail.

I might suggest cropping #4 to exclude the car/fence in the background, if you have the range to do this. It also looks like #4 was taken from the stands, as the view is looking down on the players. Though sometimes effective, this angle is usually not optimal.

It also looks like you were standing when you took many of the pitch-level shots. Try kneeling or getting a small camp stool to sit on. It may seem like a small matter, but taking with shot with a level or small upwards angle will really make a difference.

Hope this helps!

John

zoomn

Thanks John, that's very helpful. I am having a heck of a time getting proper exposure in the bright sunshine. I'll take your suggestions and see if that helps. I'll also getting lower on shots. Thanks again for your comments!!

System

I think you did a good job. Photos #2 and #5 are the best ones. Here are my comments:

1) The horizon line in #3 and #5 seems off. If you're shooting hand-held or on a monopod it can be tough to keep your shots level. But that is easily fixed in post as long as you have enough space all around your subject because you'll lose some as the image is turned to be level.

2) Image #3 is nice, but without the ball it isn't as good as it could be. Almost every sports picture should have the ball in it, IMHO.

3) I think the previous poster was referring to #1 when he spoke about the exposure being high. There isn't much you can do on this photo as that white building in the background are highly reflective. The only thing you can do is just pass on that shot knowing it won't be that great. Sports move fast and it can be tough to realize everything that is in your shot as you're shooting. But if you familiarize yourself with the background from the POV you're shooting from you can avoid taking shots that don't work. I have this same problem shooting with empty metal stands in the backgrounds of my photos. They will be too blown out and the picture is therefore unusable. Also, try shooting in landscape to minimize bad backgrounds. The height of a portrait sports photo is tough to fill, but a horizontal picture can usually be filled with other players to avoid the distraction of a bad background.

jhefti

zoomn wrote: »

Thanks John, that's very helpful. I am having a heck of a time getting proper exposure in the bright sunshine. I'll take your suggestions and see if that helps. I'll also getting lower on shots. Thanks again for your comments!!

Proper exposure in bright and direct sun is really hard, especially if the team uniform is shiny white! two tricks that help me:

1. Obvious, but try to keep the light directly behind you, so that it illuminates the entire side of the player you are shooting. I know this is not easy or even always possible, and of course it's better to get a good action shot than a perfectly exposed but boring shot.

2. Meter off the highlights: I usually use partial metering mode, and scan the pitch and players before the game to get a sense of the highlights and how to keep them from blowing out. At a minimum, I try to keep the faces from blowout. Then I use manual mode to keep the exposure fixed during the game, so that my highlight/shadow ratio in the exposure remains constant. In the post, I bring up the shadows and midtones (usually in batch mode, so this isn't something you need to do on every photo) to even out the contrasts. At least to my eye, blown out faces are much worse than too dark shadows. This is especially true if only half the face is in direct light (like your picture #5); I go for a properly exposed half-face, then try to bring up *some* detail in the shadowed part of the face and other relevant parts of the pic in the post.

All that said, I love it when I am shooting in a light cloud cover, which acts as a diffuser.

Overall, these are really nice shots!

zoomn

Thank you both for your remarks. I'm going to keep plugging away at it, your critiques, advice and encouragement are quite helpful!!