First Soccer photos with 40D

bikingbets

Ok, new sporting adventures await me. I took a few shots at practice to see if I can get the hang of shooting soccer before the first game.

I used a Canon 40D with 70-200mm L mostly set at 200mm, f/2.8 and 1/2000, ISO 200. The sun was dropping quickly, as you can see.

C&C will be greatly appreciated! I'm very interested in PP cropping opinions...a 1.4 teleconverter is on the way, but in the meantime I'm cropping to get closer to the action...too much so?

1.


2. EDIT: Changed to portrait mode and less sharpening applied.


3.


4.


Thanks for looking,
Betsy

johng

Betsy,

I think you're off to a good start here. Here are my thoughts for each shot:

1. not level - check the pole in the background - easily fixed when cropping. The framing is off to me - you have everything pushed to the bottom right of the frame. It's usually better to have empty space IN FRONT of your subject not behind. So I would like to see the girl and ball moved to the left and up. That's another thing - grass in the foreground usually works better than dead space in the sky - it pushes the feet / ball up a bit in the frame and looks better than empty sky.

2. Really the only picture in the lot that looks oversharpened. Also a lot of dead space. It's why I'm not a big fan of shooting landscape. Over half the frame is dead space. Shot portrait you'd have a natural amount above and below your subject - so the dead space is broken up. With this framing the dead space dominates.

3. Nice capture - the 3 kids are clearly visible and nice expessions. But this shot is caused the most damage by the landscape orientation. About 60% of the frame is complete dead space. A little bit for your subject to 'move into' can be beneficial but not this much. Again, IMO, a good example o why landscape rarely works (except for goalie saves and slide tackles which aren't going to happen at this level or very tigh 'sportrait' style shots.

4. No ball and looks a bit front focused - i.e. the leg looks sharper than the face.

The good news is - these are all very easily fixed things. Exposure is pretty good (tough time of day to get perfect) and sharpness is pretty good. And it looks like you're getting low. All very positive things.

bikingbets

John:

As always, thanks for the guidance!

I'd like to ask as a follow-up:

In my decision to leave the space in front of the subjects, I was thinking of the rule of thumb which tells us to leave space for the subjects to move toward, or look toward. In sports shooting, do we get more impact by breaking that rule and cropping differently? In #1, moving the girl left and up would have her looking away from the frame, but I understand your point about too much dead space in the sky.

If shot portrait, #2 and #3 would leave very little space in which to move.

I'm not disagreeing with you, just trying to understand the school of thought.

Thanks again for taking the time to help!

Betsy

johng wrote:

Betsy,

I think you're off to a good start here. Here are my thoughts for each shot:

1. not level - check the pole in the background - easily fixed when cropping. The framing is off to me - you have everything pushed to the bottom right of the frame. It's usually better to have empty space IN FRONT of your subject not behind. So I would like to see the girl and ball moved to the left and up. That's another thing - grass in the foreground usually works better than dead space in the sky - it pushes the feet / ball up a bit in the frame and looks better than empty sky.

2. Really the only picture in the lot that looks oversharpened. Also a lot of dead space. It's why I'm not a big fan of shooting landscape. Over half the frame is dead space. Shot portrait you'd have a natural amount above and below your subject - so the dead space is broken up. With this framing the dead space dominates.

3. Nice capture - the 3 kids are clearly visible and nice expessions. But this shot is caused the most damage by the landscape orientation. About 60% of the frame is complete dead space. A little bit for your subject to 'move into' can be beneficial but not this much. Again, IMO, a good example o why landscape rarely works (except for goalie saves and slide tackles which aren't going to happen at this level or very tigh 'sportrait' style shots.

4. No ball and looks a bit front focused - i.e. the leg looks sharper than the face.

The good news is - these are all very easily fixed things. Exposure is pretty good (tough time of day to get perfect) and sharpness is pretty good. And it looks like you're getting low. All very positive things.

johng

Betsy,

First off - it's ok to disagree with me. Photography is as much about art as it is science and art can be subjective. So with regards to composition that is always a subjective thing. In general, you have the concept right - the difference is proportion. Unlike many styles of photography, the goal in sports work is most often to fill the frame with your subject. It's more important to have room for your subject to 'move into' if the subject is very fast. People aren't that fast. And again the amount of 'space' is relatively small.
Here are some random soccer samples to illustrate:




here's an example where I've left some space for my subjects to move into:


Here I didn't leave much room - but I prefer tight action. And in my mind it isn't so bad because the action isn't "moving quickly" out of the frame:

bikingbets

Yep, I see what you mean.
I think it's especially effective when the players are seemingly taking shorter steps as opposed to long strides.
Thanks John!