Could really use some advice

buckeyenut · May 14, 2009

I have been shooting my daughters sports for a few years and although I have gotten a lot of good pictures and the parents love them, I never seem to be able to get that amazingly focused and perfect exposure shot. I have been using a Canon 40D with a 70-200L non IS lens. I typically shoot in Aperture Priority mode using center point focus and evaluative metering. I change the aperture quite a bit really just not know which is going to get me the best picture. I don't do any other adjustments.

I have been learning a lot over the last few years but would love for some good advice and simple steps I could take to get a better exposure out of the camera and better focus on faces and overall. My site is at the bottom so feel free to take a look at some of the pictures. I am probably too picky but it sure seems like some of the soccer and baseball pictures posted in this forum look better then anything I have taken.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. :rofl

tdinardo · May 15, 2009

Some things to consider:

Learn to use your camera in manual mode (not manual focus). Learn what each setting does and why you should/should not make adjustments to it. I would recommend reading these two books to improve your understanding of exposure and shutter speed:

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-Photographs-Digital-Updated/dp/0817463003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242360951&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Shutter-Speed-Low-Light-Photography/dp/0817463011/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Be more selective in what you chose to capture. In reviewing some of your galleries, it is clear that you need to spend more time thinking about what you are taking pictures of rather than just hitting the shutter release for everything that happens. One well composed properly timed image capturing an important moment is better than 20 random snapshots.

Learn to move your focus point while shooting. Place the focus point in a position that allows you to properly compose your shots. If the action dictates moving the focus point, learn how to do that without looking at your camera or thinking about it. That will improve both your composition and the number of sharp images you capture.

Shoot tighter. Shoot tighter. Shoot tighter. There is way too much open space surounding the subjects in your images.

Choose clean backgrounds. When you see someone standing directly across from where you are shooting, wearing a bright orange t-shirt or the 300lb lady in a lawn chair, move to a position where they will not be in frame. It is often hard to get a clean background shooting kids soccer, but if you think about it before hand and keep it in mind while shooting, you can reduce the impact with minor position changes. If you are stuck with bad backgrounds from every position, reducing your DOF by shooting wide open can help reduce the impact of dirty background, particularly when shooting tighter.

Be more selective in what you keep and post to your site. Right now it does not appear that you do much if any culling of your images. By spending the time to cull your images down to just the good ones, you will be able to gauge your learning progress and improvements. Go for quality not quantity.

Learn to use your software to improve your images during your post processing stage. There are many things you can do in post to improve your images.

Keep in mind the viewers of your photos. If you think it's a bad picture, so will your viewer. If it's bad, don't display it. IMO, it's better to display 10 good shots from a match rather than 10 good ones and 90 bad ones.

Hope this helps.

Tom

Tosser · May 15, 2009

Here's what I think. Your focus point seems to often be off the person with the ball (for example, Sam Soccer-111 and 110).

Also, turn down your ISO to the lowest you can go (400 will just not have as good IQ as 100) and still have good shutter speed, and don't be afraid to open up the lens for less DOF.

A couple of other things, work on not cutting off limbs of the players, crop your shots tighter either in camera or in post, and make sure your horizons/field are level in the image. Focus on faces. If you get the eyes sharp, you can often get away with some other stuff. And, the backs of players chasing balls are often not very interesting from a sports shooting perspective.

Erbeman · May 15, 2009

tdinardo wrote:

Some things to consider:

Learn to use your camera in manual mode (not manual focus). Learn what each setting does and why you should/should not make adjustments to it. I would recommend reading these two books to improve your understanding of exposure and shutter speed:

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-Photographs-Digital-Updated/dp/0817463003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242360951&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Shutter-Speed-Low-Light-Photography/dp/0817463011/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Be more selective in what you chose to capture. In reviewing some of your galleries, it is clear that you need to spend more time thinking about what you are taking pictures of rather than just hitting the shutter release for everything that happens. One well composed properly timed image capturing an important moment is better than 20 random snapshots.

Learn to move your focus point while shooting. Place the focus point in a position that allows you to properly compose your shots. If the action dictates moving the focus point, learn how to do that without looking at your camera or thinking about it. That will improve both your composition and the number of sharp images you capture.

Shoot tighter. Shoot tighter. Shoot tighter. There is way too much open space surounding the subjects in your images.

Choose clean backgrounds. When you see someone standing directly across from where you are shooting, wearing a bright orange t-shirt or the 300lb lady in a lawn chair, move to a position where they will not be in frame. It is often hard to get a clean background shooting kids soccer, but if you think about it before hand and keep it in mind while shooting, you can reduce the impact with minor position changes. If you are stuck with bad backgrounds from every position, reducing your DOF by shooting wide open can help reduce the impact of dirty background, particularly when shooting tighter.

Be more selective in what you keep and post to your site. Right now it does not appear that you do much if any culling of your images. By spending the time to cull your images down to just the good ones, you will be able to gauge your learning progress and improvements. Go for quality not quantity.

Learn to use your software to improve your images during your post processing stage. There are many things you can do in post to improve your images.

Keep in mind the viewers of your photos. If you think it's a bad picture, so will your viewer. If it's bad, don't display it. IMO, it's better to display 10 good shots from a match rather than 10 good ones and 90 bad ones.

Hope this helps.

Tom

Yea what he said. If you want to become a better photographer, you must learn to shoot in full manual mode but with auto focus. This allows you to adjust on the fly to get the result you are looking for and not hoping your camera does the work better than you can. The book Understanding Exposure that he suggested, is the bible for learning what it takes to shoot in manual mode to get a prooper exposure. Once I made myself learn manual, I have never gone back to asking the camera to do the work for me then hoping it's good enough.

Could really use some advice

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