Peewee football.. Lessons learned.

JimKarczewski

So this weekend I had an early assignment from the paper, afterwards I headed out to the burbs of Chicago to shoot some PeeWee football. My cousins kids are on 2 different teams, being the they were both in the championships, figured I'd head out and play with a 7D to see how it performed. Mainly shot with the 7D, my 70-200/2.8 (V1) and a 1.4x TC (III) to see how it would work.

Lesson #1, PeeWee.. don't spread out too much it seems, at leas these teams didn't. The pack was dense so getting action was much more challenging than high school football, which I normally shoot.

#2, rushing is king. Yeah, there was passing a the lower levels and increased as the weight ranges (typically older kids) increased, but not nearly as much as H.S. again...

#3, the 7D, which I rented from BorrowLenses, is one temperamental, unpredictable AI Servo camera compared to my 5DII which I normally shoot sports with (yes, I use a 5DII for sports!) I thought it wasn't that bad as the day I received it I stopped at a H.S. football game and it seemed not to bad. But next day in full sunlight it was a random mess of hunting different subjects even with the AI Tracking set to "SLOWEST"

Anyway... got some decent keepers.. Hopefully the parents will like (re: buy) them.. We'll see. Just with the 300/4 I rented with the 7D didn't act up. Kept going from f4 to f00, f4 to f00.. I think the IS switch was damaged. Oh well!


This kid was a train... nothing could stop him..


Defense was called for a face mask violation.. but they both were guilty


Little sun flare action on the deep pass to the receiver


pass block, this kid was pretty impressive on D and O..


catching the ball while about to be nailed by 2 defensive opponents takes skill...

johng

some thoughts:
1) nice action. but contrast is very bad here - shot is very washed out. Also the shot is underexposed - it's the faces that matter and they're in shadow. And, a lot of unnecessary dead space.

2) Again, nice action. Shot is crooked and still underexposed for the faces. And, still framed too loosely.

3) decent timing but the framing is off - feet are cut off and lots of dead space on sides. As with most of these shots the photo would be framed better in portrait orientation. But the flare just doesn't enhance the shot IMO - just really distracts from it.

4) nothing much good in this shot - way too loosely framed, crooked, no faces, and you don't even get the fact it was blocked.

5) again, good action but it's way too far away / loosely framed with too much dead space.

Honestly Jim, unless you've got a parent base with lots of money to burn and no cameras themselves, it's going to be tough to sell a lot of shots like these. The age doesn't matter - you need to make pee-wee athletes look just as impressive as HS athletes:






That starts by framing a whole lot tighter than you're currently doing, getting your exposures better and getting some better subject isolation. This may sound harsh, but you talk about shooting for a paper and selling prints. The expectation of quality shouldn't go down just because the kids are younger.

jhefti

Jim, I have to agree with John about this. I think there are a number of additional ways to improve your shots, starting with lighting. Keep the sun to your back if at all possible. You'll have a hell of a time getting any decent facial exposure if the faces are in shadow. This may mean missing some of the action, but you'll get a much better set. The only time I might slip in a shot that is poorly lit is if it is a game-defining moment and people are going to forgive technical flaws for the capture.

I'm not sure how you are metering, but I meter off the uniforms and faces, rather than evaluative. Sometimes this will blow out or under-expose the background, but more importantly it will keep the subject properly exposed. To do this I scan the field and players in partial metering mode to bracket the highs and lows, and get the uniforms and faces close to correct. I then take some shots with highlight alert enabled, and pull the exposure down just enough to keep bright white or yellow uniforms from clipping. Then I set the camera in manual mode to keep the exposure from jumping around. I will reference the grass to see what the overall light is doing to the exposure, then periodically check during the game and adjust if necessary. The good thing about football is that there is a lot of down time for you to check exposure frequently.

Regarding crop, I generally agree that close is better, though I take a lot of liberties in this matter. Sometimes you want to emphasize the player's position on the field relative to the others, so a little space is helpful. However, my goal in shooting games like this is to have a set of shots that tells the story: if every shot is close and tight it gets boring; if none are it looks amateurish and not exciting. Just keep in mind what story you'd like each shot to tell, and crop accordingly.

Hope this helps!

John

JimKarczewski

Didn't post process any of this, unfortunately with the sun going down at around 3:30 is when I had flare issues. Problem being if I had my back to the sun, kids were on the opposite side of the field hash mark.. So they were really across the field..

Typically (and this is NOT a typical situation for me) I would crop the images, especially for the paper I work for.. I'd get yelled at from here to next week if I did this stuff for them. Cropping is my normal routine, but I'm only producing 4-5 shots for the paper.. this one I shot about 1000 pics per game. No way in hell I'm going to spend the time to edit every single image!!!

Thanks for the critique. Normally I don't get the luxury of shooting in the day.. HS is always night games.. so a little out of my element with placement!

johng

Jim - so help me understand. You say these shots, as posted, aren't up to standards for your paper. You say you took 1000 photos but no way you're going to edit them. But you don't even take the few minutes to edit the photos you're going to publicly post as representative of your work? There's just a lot wrong with this scenario.

This is a concept I just don't get - "I know these photos aren't up to standards for my client, but I'm just not feeling like putting forth the energy to process 4 photos". If you don't want to take the time to edit - why bother posting? If you're going to present your POTENTIAL customers with hundreds upon hundreds of un-edited photos I think sales are going to be very low indeed. You've got skills as a photographer. But have enough pride in your work to present work you think is worthy and has your best efforts - not just work that you believe would have you getting "yelled at from here to next week if I did this stuff for them"

jhefti

...and who edits 1000 shots? I just pick the good ones and spend time on those. I delete 80% of the shots on the first pass through the set.

Seriously, I shoot on deadline all the time and I manage to process 600-800 RAW shots of a pro game into a set worthy of submitting to the paper and/or media outlets within half an hour of game's end--many are submitted during the game!