Youth Football - first attempt
Friend of mine is a referee for youth football. He was in town last weekend, so I thought I'd come out and see what kind of shots I could conjure up. The configuration of the field meant I was shooting into the sun all day, and the onboard flash wasn't going to be any help. 430EX is on order.
My action shots left a lot to be desired, either the AF or my index finger were too slow to catch what I wanted. In hindsight I should have upped the ISO a bit, I wouldn't have had much noise at 200.
I did get some fairly amusing stills, however.
I'm still mildly amazed that the IS, at full telephoto, works well enough for the above shot. They were about 30 yds away, and as I forgot my monopod, I was shooting freehand.
Some friends' kids are playing at intermission of our WHL team's game in a few weeks, so I'm anxious to see how I do with hockey.
My action shots left a lot to be desired, either the AF or my index finger were too slow to catch what I wanted. In hindsight I should have upped the ISO a bit, I wouldn't have had much noise at 200.
I did get some fairly amusing stills, however.
I'm still mildly amazed that the IS, at full telephoto, works well enough for the above shot. They were about 30 yds away, and as I forgot my monopod, I was shooting freehand.
Some friends' kids are playing at intermission of our WHL team's game in a few weeks, so I'm anxious to see how I do with hockey.
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Welcome to the sports forum...I am a transplanted Saskatchewanian, FWIW
I don't shoot football, and think it would be tough with the helmets anyway,
Flash isn't going to make any difference. You want to shoot burst for any action - like a reciever running for a TD, and flash is incompatable with that.
WRT the pics you've posted, start by cropping out any background clutter.
WRT hockey, ice rinks are deceptively dark, you will need to crank your ISO. Shoot RAW or set your white balance using a grey card, cuz the ice arenas use metal halide lighting and it cycles - changing your exposure all the time.
My favorite sports shooting tips, shared with me years ago, are:
Shoot tight, crop tighter
Face, Action, Contact, Ball (puck)
Specifically, I use a 20d, Custom Fn 4-3, and the star focus button. AI Servo. I put the camera onto manual, and change shutter speed and ISO as necessary for the light. I use my 70 - 200 lens, at f5.6. If the light is bad I will open the aperture more than that.
Keep the posts coming. (and throw in a nice prairie sunset for me, will ya?)
ann
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Looks like a fun time. A few things in addition to what Ann said:
1. Open up your aperature a bit more if you can. That will give you faster shutter speeds and it will help to blur out your backgrounds, making them less distracting.
2. Watch your backgrounds - if you can avoid shotting with people, fences, etc, in the background, you'll get much nicer looking shots. Obviously this isn't always possible, number 1 helps with this as well.
3. To repeat what Ann said, " Shoot tight, crop tighter." Figure out what you're trying to get, and get rid of anything that doesn't work towards that.
Good luck with the hockey!
And I've shot the odd sunset this fall, but none turned out as well as I'd hoped. Here's a gallery of shots taken while driving to work, they are all sunrises though.
Good points all the way around. On the aperture front, I'm shooting with a Canon S5 IS, so at full telephoto my max aperture is 3.5, and the DOF just won't blur the backround that kind of range.
I really need to evaluate photos on-camera to find motion blur before I get home 3 hours later, and take steps to avoid it.
I can get shutter speeds as fast as 1/1600. What kind of speed do I need to eliminate blur? 1/250?
Also, photography is as bad, if not worse than motorcycles - I've been looking at 30D's and dirt bikes since Thursday.
I'm not an expert, but, I'd say that for youth football, 1/250 should probably be enough... I would think 1/500 definitely would be. My guess is that you're not going to want to spend too much time trying to detect motion blur on a little camera LCD, and really, unless you take the time to zoom in on all of them, you're probably not even going to see it on the camera.
Since you're opening your Aperature as much as you can anyway, I'd say just go as fast as you can with shutter speed, and if you start falling below 1/250, bring up the ISO.
One other suggestion... if your S5 has it, shoot in burst mode. Though I've heard one or two people here say that it isn't the way to go, the vast majority seem to think it is. It's hard enough to time a shot just right, so if you can get 3 or 4 frames out of it, you've got a much better chance of getting a keeper.
Good luck!
The blurry background is from using a wide aperture to decrease the DOF. This help separate your - sharply focused - subject from the lens blurred background. I've been shooting HS field hockey and soccer, and some football. Field hockey & soccer, esp on HS level is much faster than youth football. I'm using a Nikon d70s, aperture priority - 4.5 or 5.6 - with ISO400, and continuous autofocus. The lens is a 70-200 f2.8. On a bright sunny day, the shutter varies between 1/800 and 1/2000. I would suggest using 1/400 and up for youth sports.
Sometimes your lens will not focus fast enough. Result, not what you want is in focus!! I had too much of that problems shooting varsity soccer yesterday. Deleted 115 shots because of that. In my case, I'm pretty sure it is the camera body not driving the lens fast enough. I hoping I can get 'Santa' to get me the Nikon d300!!
I've read that pojnt&shoots, in general, do not have the ability to give you blurred backgrounds even with their widest aperture set. Also. generally speaking, the more expensive, pro type, dslr lenses, will give a nicer, smoother blurred appearance. The best have what is called nice/terrific 'bokeh'.
If you like, take a look at my sports galleries: shoppix.smugmug.com .
Regards
shoppix(Steve)
Yep. I took all those shots in single-shot AF, with too low of an ISO setting and not quite fast enough shutter.
Burst mode
continuous AF
shutter at 1/250 or faster
Wide open aperture
ISO as necessary
Love this place. Thanks all for taking the time to work thru this with me. Better results will be displayed in the near future.