Was invited to photog a paintball game today

jbswear

Had a lot of fun! I was unarmed and wore a bright orange vest to 'minimize' shots. Had a bag over my XTi to prevent any paint splatters. I only got hit 3 or 4 times...

Here are a few shots. Soon as I open a SmugMug account I'll be able to do this with several in one post...

These are all with no PP editing. I shot in RAW, white balance set to 'cloudy' (though I need to change it to sunny as the sun did come out), ISO 100, and most, if not all at 1/200s. 55-200mm lens. Later on I'll play with them to fix the flaws, as a bunch of the guys in the game would like some shots to print.

I'm glad I took the advice of you guys...recently Kingston offered a $50 rebate on their 4G CF cards. I bought two to go along with the 1G card I already had. In 3 hours, I burned through nearly 9G of card space, and that was deleting bad shots between games! I think a few more cards are in the works--can't justify a notebook computer yet...

Look closely, and you'll see a blue paintball flying in the distance.

jbswear

The smoking gun
I love the burst function on my camera!

jbswear

In the dirt
another

jbswear

On the attack
moving up

jbswear

Waiting for the word to GOOOOO
Game's about to start...

jbswear

Yours truly
Took a shot right to the head. Sure glad it wasn't my lens!

brncr6

The 5th one is the one I like the best, you can see how much they are in to it.

awmphoto

I like your shots a lot, as a paintball player myself I think you really captured it well. Just a suggestion though possibly try shooting at a faster shutter speed and maybe try catching a few paintballs comming out of the barrel? Ethier way I think you have some great shots here.

jbswear

awmphoto wrote:

I like your shots a lot, as a paintball player myself I think you really captured it well. Just a suggestion though possibly try shooting at a faster shutter speed and maybe try catching a few paintballs comming out of the barrel? Ethier way I think you have some great shots here.

Next time I go out I'll have to try it with a faster speed. What speed would you recommend?

awmphoto

jbswear wrote:

Next time I go out I'll have to try it with a faster speed. What speed would you recommend?

well don't quote me on this, but paintballs travel at a velocity of arround 275-300 feet per second so I'm guessing the shutter speed would have to be pretty high around 1/500 or higher depending on your lighting, pretty much the faster the better I would guess. Having never shot paintball, only playing it thats as good as I can do. Hope this helps.

CookieS

Im thinking you could use 400 Iso and set your shutter at 1000 and let the camera pick aperature, you would still have plenty depth of field i think for what your shooting.

Phyxius

jbswear wrote:

moving up

Do you know these guys? The guy in front of this shot, looks like a guy I know named Geoff. Well, not that I can see much because of the mask, but he still seems familiar. He's a marine, but enjoys paintballing.

It looks like you had fun too, that fifth shot is nice, good intensity. I agree with one of the other posters though, a faster shutter speed would have helped sharpen up the shots.

Good job!

jbswear

I only knew two of the guys at the games--two of my coworkers. They've got some more games coming up soon. I'll try faster speeds.

On the advice about using ISO 400--that's not too sensitive for daytime shooting? I guess the camera will stop down the aperture quite a bit, but I won't get noise in the shots?

Phyxius

jbswear wrote:

I only knew two of the guys at the games--two of my coworkers. They've got some more games coming up soon. I'll try faster speeds.

On the advice about using ISO 400--that's not too sensitive for daytime shooting? I guess the camera will stop down the aperture quite a bit, but I won't get noise in the shots?

Canon is pretty good with high ISOs in general and while I can't speak from experience I'm pretty sure your Rebel could handle ISO 400 in the sun with no problems at all. You can try it out on any 'ole sunny day. I typically shoot at ISO 200 or 400 if needed, but the Nikon doesn't have the noise quailty that Canon does. But, I'd try out an Aperature or shutter priority mode first to see what the camera chooses, until you're comfortable setting all of the settings in manual.