Another day, another match. This time, I might be a little closer to where I want to be, but it's still frustrating. The step ladder idea is a good one; next time I'll try it.
The lighting looks kinda tough to me. I wanted to say to up the EV in the camera, then I saw the one where it is dark one place and light another.
I wanted to ask the other day, the exif? If these people were birds....... I would be shooting them pretty much wide open to try to get rid of some of the background. F8 or F11, if possible, and I would try the more wide open, to my lenses, f 5.6....... I would rather have selective focus than the opposite. I have that problem with the birds at the shrimp boat place at Shem Creek. The background often hurts my shots. Lots of birds: that is good, I work them up, can't see them for the background: not so good (trash)
How far away you are from the subj makes a huge difference as I am sure you know. If I am close enough, with birds, I will try to isolate tham by getting down low so the sky becomes the background. I know you can get there, it is just figuring out how. The ladder and the getting down low, whichever works........the best thing about just "getting down" is it is just a body position, you are not ladder dependent, smile.
Either that or I would embrace the background. I haven't tried that with a chain link fence lately, but it can be done. The two kids coming out of the trees, I would use those trees as a pretty neutral background. Keep the other people out of lens and frame using the trees, just sitting there ready to grab the runners as they come out. I do that kind of anticipation thing often, doesn't always work, you have a pretty good chance of it working, a better chance than I do with dogs or birds. Trees are good for a background.
How many did you shoot? I would have shot all of my cards: 400 RAW shots.
ginger (Is the weather going to be OK for tonight?)
(I have enough sunrise shots, yet I woke up at 6 AM, darn, don't know what to do with myself here.)
I took a lot more of these than I processed. Not quite 400, but almost. Down to about 100 after the first cut. I have some wide open and some the opposite (in order to catch a motion blur.) The lighting was very tought as you can see. I keep hoping for an overcast afternoon, but the last two meets have had bright sunlight. It's only going to get worse when daylight savings time kicks in.
F/2.8 with the 70-200 gets great bokah and selective focus. But you can see from the next to last shot, that it has it's own problems. For this shot, it wasn't even open enough to blur out the football game and fence in the background, but it's open enough so that only one runner is in focus.
I know how hard birds are, but at least in one way this is harder, more like BIF than sitting birds, but add the fact that the window of opportunity is pretty short and won't happen again.
All the shots are in this gallery: http://rutt.smugmug.com/gallery/901469 As I said, I haven't processed all the good ones yet, but maybe the best ones. I'd be in your debt if you take a look and let me know if I missed a good one. Thanks.
Lazy man's "work" here
I went back to sleep, just woke up again, saw your post, Rutt. Didn't go to your site, yet, just lifted this off here, and used shadow/highlights to open up the faces, tried to hold some contrast. Cropped it vertically as the rest is just superfluous for my purpose: to show the runners. Left a bit more space on my left than on my rt so the boys would have room to run into it.
Your resolution and stuff was excellent to allow me to get as much as I did with a small amt of the photo, just lifted off of here. Please send camera and lens..............actually right now I need a macro lens more, perhaps an 85 macro would be fine.
I think that is all I did......... I am almost, but not quite, awake now. Oh, yeah, important, I cloned away all traces of the third person.
Thanks, Ginger. I didn't crop that much because I'm in love with the coach who is that guy on the right. But I like your crop; goes to show the kind of things that can blind the photographer. I already hit this with s/h pretty hard. I guess taking to over the top and accepting that it's not going to look realistic, well that's an option for this shot.
I'm viewing this particular shoot as a learning step. I got a couple of ones I like and I'm figuring out what to do next time. Maybe I'll get overcast next time.
This is my youngest son and the first time he has been first in one of these races. So of course, I really wanted this shot. So of course, I choked and didn't really get what I wanted. And of course he was as uncooperative as possible. *Sigh*
Yeah, it is a beautiful sunny day here today, too. Damn shame!
I don't know what you mean by "realistic", but when you look at something in real life, your eyes see what you need to see. They open up the face for you.
Of course, you need to keep some contrast: just for esthetics if nothing else, and it gives shape, too, I think. But the eye also "needs" to see. IMO With that harsh lighting problem, there were shadows in some photos, damn shadows, couldn't use the photo cause of the shadow...........IMO
I just looked at your photos. A lot depends on "who" you want to show, like the coach. I would not have kept him in that photo, but I am sure there are some that would portray the coach quite "nicely".
Of course the important thing is The Stick
Ok, so this is the epitome of a different way to PP than you do. And I did a bit too much, but I didn't want to go back and start all over.
I like this photograph, and I think it is full frame. I like the emotion in it. I like that the stick is in focus as is your son (kind of in focus), I take it, but the background is not in focus, so the raw emotion comes out. The sharper focus of the stick shows, to me, how important the fact of the finish is.
To get that I had to let it go dark. I lost one eye in the process as far as light and dark is concerned, but I figured the loss was worth the show of emotion. I don't think that is in the eyes at all, so "bye bye" eye.
What could drive you nuts is the black line around the stick and all. I know where that came from. When/if you were to do it in LAB, you would not get that. It was not from sharpening.
But I do like the emotion in this shot, just me, I do like it. I couldn't "get" the coach. He has some interesting facial expressions, but none that I could pull out and put together. Next time, as you said. You have an idea of what you are going for.
Also there was a woman with grey hair (an old lady, smile). I liked her a bit, and a couple of girls. I don't know which ones were most important to you.
I like this photo a lot. You could work it up your way, make it "yours" and pleasant to you.
Thanks again, Ginger. It's always nice when someone else does me the favor of digging though a pile of my shots and finding the good stuff that I've missed somehow or didn't see right.
The grey haired woman is the mother of my son's best friend and I've been stalking her for years. She is terrically camera shy so this was a great get. It's in the queue for processing.
John, isn't this harsh, overhead sunlight a good place to use fill flash and shoot in AV mode to lighten the shadows a bit? Just a thought - the lighting does look challenging and like it changes for every shot. But I think Fill flash with the 580 at FEC of -2/3 or -1&1/3 might have helped out.
John, isn't this harsh, overhead sunlight a good place to use fill flash and shoot in AV mode to lighten the shadows a bit? Just a thought - the lighting does look challenging and like it changes for every shot. But I think Fill flash with the 580 at FEC of -2/3 or -1&1/3 might have helped out.
Comments
Looking at no2 again if you had gone a bit to the right you may have got the 3rd runner in the shot
I wanted to ask the other day, the exif? If these people were birds....... I would be shooting them pretty much wide open to try to get rid of some of the background. F8 or F11, if possible, and I would try the more wide open, to my lenses, f 5.6....... I would rather have selective focus than the opposite. I have that problem with the birds at the shrimp boat place at Shem Creek. The background often hurts my shots. Lots of birds: that is good, I work them up, can't see them for the background: not so good (trash)
How far away you are from the subj makes a huge difference as I am sure you know. If I am close enough, with birds, I will try to isolate tham by getting down low so the sky becomes the background. I know you can get there, it is just figuring out how. The ladder and the getting down low, whichever works........the best thing about just "getting down" is it is just a body position, you are not ladder dependent, smile.
Either that or I would embrace the background. I haven't tried that with a chain link fence lately, but it can be done. The two kids coming out of the trees, I would use those trees as a pretty neutral background. Keep the other people out of lens and frame using the trees, just sitting there ready to grab the runners as they come out. I do that kind of anticipation thing often, doesn't always work, you have a pretty good chance of it working, a better chance than I do with dogs or birds. Trees are good for a background.
How many did you shoot? I would have shot all of my cards: 400 RAW shots.
ginger (Is the weather going to be OK for tonight?)
(I have enough sunrise shots, yet I woke up at 6 AM, darn, don't know what to do with myself here.)
I took a lot more of these than I processed. Not quite 400, but almost. Down to about 100 after the first cut. I have some wide open and some the opposite (in order to catch a motion blur.) The lighting was very tought as you can see. I keep hoping for an overcast afternoon, but the last two meets have had bright sunlight. It's only going to get worse when daylight savings time kicks in.
F/2.8 with the 70-200 gets great bokah and selective focus. But you can see from the next to last shot, that it has it's own problems. For this shot, it wasn't even open enough to blur out the football game and fence in the background, but it's open enough so that only one runner is in focus.
I know how hard birds are, but at least in one way this is harder, more like BIF than sitting birds, but add the fact that the window of opportunity is pretty short and won't happen again.
All the shots are in this gallery: http://rutt.smugmug.com/gallery/901469 As I said, I haven't processed all the good ones yet, but maybe the best ones. I'd be in your debt if you take a look and let me know if I missed a good one. Thanks.
I went back to sleep, just woke up again, saw your post, Rutt. Didn't go to your site, yet, just lifted this off here, and used shadow/highlights to open up the faces, tried to hold some contrast. Cropped it vertically as the rest is just superfluous for my purpose: to show the runners. Left a bit more space on my left than on my rt so the boys would have room to run into it.
Your resolution and stuff was excellent to allow me to get as much as I did with a small amt of the photo, just lifted off of here. Please send camera and lens..............actually right now I need a macro lens more, perhaps an 85 macro would be fine.
I think that is all I did......... I am almost, but not quite, awake now. Oh, yeah, important, I cloned away all traces of the third person.
g (just a finisher, a bit)
I'm viewing this particular shoot as a learning step. I got a couple of ones I like and I'm figuring out what to do next time. Maybe I'll get overcast next time.
This is my youngest son and the first time he has been first in one of these races. So of course, I really wanted this shot. So of course, I choked and didn't really get what I wanted. And of course he was as uncooperative as possible. *Sigh*
I don't know what you mean by "realistic", but when you look at something in real life, your eyes see what you need to see. They open up the face for you.
Of course, you need to keep some contrast: just for esthetics if nothing else, and it gives shape, too, I think. But the eye also "needs" to see. IMO With that harsh lighting problem, there were shadows in some photos, damn shadows, couldn't use the photo cause of the shadow...........IMO
I just looked at your photos. A lot depends on "who" you want to show, like the coach. I would not have kept him in that photo, but I am sure there are some that would portray the coach quite "nicely".
g
g (don't know if it is the best, haven't checked.)
Ok, so this is the epitome of a different way to PP than you do. And I did a bit too much, but I didn't want to go back and start all over.
I like this photograph, and I think it is full frame. I like the emotion in it. I like that the stick is in focus as is your son (kind of in focus), I take it, but the background is not in focus, so the raw emotion comes out. The sharper focus of the stick shows, to me, how important the fact of the finish is.
To get that I had to let it go dark. I lost one eye in the process as far as light and dark is concerned, but I figured the loss was worth the show of emotion. I don't think that is in the eyes at all, so "bye bye" eye.
What could drive you nuts is the black line around the stick and all. I know where that came from. When/if you were to do it in LAB, you would not get that. It was not from sharpening.
But I do like the emotion in this shot, just me, I do like it. I couldn't "get" the coach. He has some interesting facial expressions, but none that I could pull out and put together. Next time, as you said. You have an idea of what you are going for.
Also there was a woman with grey hair (an old lady, smile). I liked her a bit, and a couple of girls. I don't know which ones were most important to you.
I like this photo a lot. You could work it up your way, make it "yours" and pleasant to you.
ginger
The grey haired woman is the mother of my son's best friend and I've been stalking her for years. She is terrically camera shy so this was a great get. It's in the queue for processing.
I did post a couple of those girls here: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=20871
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Thank you, Jim. That's worth trying.