Some of my recent favorie soccer shots...

patrickbeil

....

gsgary

How about a tighter crop thats what i have been told for football and faces, I'm still learning like yourself

KMCC

Being a bit of a youth soccer fan myself, I really like the second shot. Her expression seems to perfectly mirror the weather conditions.

ian408

Wow! She does clean up well.

The first shot would benefit from the same tight crop.

Ian

JoeL

Cropping!

ian408 wrote:

Wow! She does clean up well.

The first shot would benefit from the same tight crop.

Ian

Cropping is as much a part of the image as taking it.
Its tough to always shoot tight, sometimes impossible.

Creative cropping can make a good image an Awesome image.
Unless there is something in the image to help tell the story it really needs to be cropped out so the main focus is on the action/main character.

In Sports its critical to keep the focus on the "play" so to speak.

I have lots of Sports shots on my page that you can look at as far as cropping is concerned, all the Football and Volleyball were shot for a Commercial Sports Client.
The Soccer was just for fun since they were my Daughters Teams.
www.actionshots4u.smugmug.com

JoeL

Thanks so much for the kind words,

If someone wants one of the small thin images they will print in just about any size up to an 8x10 with no problem, it will however have the outer white borders that have to be trimmed off.

When they need larger prints for posters and life size stand-ups to go in stores or for displays, I use a special Interpolation program to enlarge them without Quality Loss or Pixelation. Actually its a Free program I use and it works great... I will add the link later..

Zooms or Primes??.. Actually both, I use a 300 f/2.8 ~ 400 f/2.8 and a 80-200 f/2.8 for all my Sports shots.

Camera and Settings:
I shoot with the Camera set to capture in sRGB or Adobe RGB some call it Colorspace II, that way you have more Captured information and Color with the image for better processing, I later convert them to RGB for web viewing.
I use in Camera Sharpening set to "Fine" just in case I have to print or burn a CD on site, it just helps it look better/crisper in that case.

One thing I have learned is that the "Factory" Lens such as Nikon, Canon etc. make a huge difference, the other Lens makers have lens that will do the job and do it well in most cases but they will NEVER be as Sharp, Fast and Clear as the actual Factory lens. (my opinion)
When I started out I used Sigma, Quantaray and Tamron lens because of cost, I am now fortunate enough to have all Factory lens, but it was a slow process (2 years) being able to afford them.

Post Processing:
After I download the images I back ALL of them up on CD then go back and delete any from the computer that are not good,wanted/needed.

I then Crop the image and start working on Lighting and Color, once the Light and Color is what I want I start Sharpening, I use the Intellisharpen II program from Fred Miranda, it is an awesome program that will allow you to sharpen Selectively and Proportionally in each image. It also allows you to save Custom settings for future use, it is the best Sharpening program I have ever seen or used and its only $25.00. www.fredmiranda.com

The Interpolation Program I use was a FREE program that I downloaded and it is an awesome program heres the link: www.interpolatethis.com

I hope this helps a little, its just based on my Personal Experience and Workflow. And certainly my Personal opinion and evaluation on the Factory -vs- Aftermarket Lens. (That can be a touchy subject to some)

If You/Anyone would like more details on my PS processing or settings I would be happy to offer any help/assistance possible. Please email.

We all have the same goal in mind, Taking and making great images....

Thanks, Joe