Girls HS Volleyball

OldGuy · October 30, 2010

Shot my first game this week in about 2 yrs. Gym lighting was terrible.::huh
I think the school was cost-cutting so not all the lights were on.:huh I also was having "Back Focus" issues with my 70-200 so quality is all over the place. Regardless, I am happy with the action and facial expressions.:wink

Comments and Critique are always welcome.:bow

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Thanks for looking.::D

Icebear · October 30, 2010

Nice images John. I don't know about your back focus issues, but these look pretty decent to me. I wonder why you are only shooting at ISO1600 though. I'm pretty happy with my D300 at 3200, but then I have ACR 6.2 to clean it up. That would have at least taken care of the softness from motion blur anyway.

A very enjoyable set. As you said, good facial expression. The player in #9 is really up there isn't she!

travisn · October 30, 2010

mmmm spandex...

I am allowed to say that still because I graduated hs this decade!

benamen · October 31, 2010

Hey John,

Where abouts in Michigan are you located? I'm from the Grand Rapids area. Loy Norrix, that's around K-zoo isn't it? The old memory just ain't what she used to be.

Pretty nice shots. The gym looks kind of dark and imposing but the goodnews is the backgrounds are clean. I thought that 1,8,9 & 10 were the best. Number 2 looks oof. No ball in #3 and no eyes in #7. Volleyball is one tough game to shoot. Good stuff!

Ben

johng · October 31, 2010

Some thoughts:
shot 1: nice action but very harsh contrast.
shot 2: serves tend to make boring shots, but more important, the face is not sharp - not sure if the shot is overcropped, or blur or damaged from noise but something isn't right with her face.

shot 3: sharpness is good, but no ball and again, contrast is too harsh.
shot 4: back of heads doesn't make for much of a shot. You want to shoot through or over the net for blocks
shot 5: I like the lines of the receiver in this shot, but it's framed too loosely - the other player isn't part of the play and there's just too much dead space.
shot 6: nice timing, but the focus is on the player behind the play, not the player bumping. Given the expression on her face, it's not a flattering shot of her.
shot 7: nice timing but her face isn't in focus and again it's either over-cropped or too much damage from noise.
shot 8: again, servers just aren't interesting and there's the issue with facial detail
shot 9: very nice shot. Easily the best of the bunch.
shot 10: nice timing but the face isn't in focus and there's noise damage.

Volleyball isn't easy. I think with another game or two under your belt your form will be back. But, I can't tell what's going on with facial detail in many of these - as I said, it's either fixed exposure/noise or overcrop. But you need to solve that technical problem going forward.

OldGuy · October 31, 2010

Icebear wrote: »

Nice images John. I don't know about your back focus issues, but these look pretty decent to me. I wonder why you are only shooting at ISO1600 though. I'm pretty happy with my D300 at 3200, but then I have ACR 6.2 to clean it up. That would have at least taken care of the softness from motion blur anyway.

A very enjoyable set. As you said, good facial expression. The player in #9 is really up there isn't she!

Thanks John, I feel 3200 ISO is a little too noisy for my taste. I use NoiseNinja.

travisn wrote: »

mmmm spandex...
I am allowed to say that still because I graduated hs this decade!

Yes, however check out a swim meet:D

benamen wrote: »

Hey John,

Where abouts in Michigan are you located? I'm from the Grand Rapids area. Loy Norrix, that's around K-zoo isn't it? The old memory just ain't what she used to be.

Pretty nice shots. The gym looks kind of dark and imposing but the goodnews is the backgrounds are clean. I thought that 1,8,9 & 10 were the best. Number 2 looks oof. No ball in #3 and no eyes in #7. Volleyball is one tough game to shoot. Good stuff!

Ben

Hi Ben, thanks. I am indeed in Kazoo. I am also the Diving Coach for both the girls and boys swim teams at Norrix

johng wrote: »

Some thoughts:
shot 1: nice action but very harsh contrast.
shot 2: serves tend to make boring shots, but more important, the face is not sharp - not sure if the shot is overcropped, or blur or damaged from noise but something isn't right with her face.

shot 3: sharpness is good, but no ball and again, contrast is too harsh.
shot 4: back of heads doesn't make for much of a shot. You want to shoot through or over the net for blocks
shot 5: I like the lines of the receiver in this shot, but it's framed too loosely - the other player isn't part of the play and there's just too much dead space.
shot 6: nice timing, but the focus is on the player behind the play, not the player bumping. Given the expression on her face, it's not a flattering shot of her.
shot 7: nice timing but her face isn't in focus and again it's either over-cropped or too much damage from noise.
shot 8: again, servers just aren't interesting and there's the issue with facial detail
shot 9: very nice shot. Easily the best of the bunch.
shot 10: nice timing but the face isn't in focus and there's noise damage.

Volleyball isn't easy. I think with another game or two under your belt your form will be back. But, I can't tell what's going on with facial detail in many of these - as I said, it's either fixed exposure/noise or overcrop. But you need to solve that technical problem going forward.

Thanks John, your points are well taken. As I mentioned at the beginning, I am having some equipment issues that I need to solve, such as #6 where the focus spot was dead center on the front player and it still was off.

adbsgicom · November 2, 2010

+1 on #9 being best of the bunch. You have the ball, face and action all together...

OldGuy · November 2, 2010

adbsgicom wrote: »

+1 on #9 being best of the bunch. You have the ball, face and action all together...

Thanks Andrew,

Gotta keep practicing

adbsgicom · November 3, 2010

Me too. Unfortunately, we're done for the season. Middle School doesn't last that long. On to Basketball (much harder for me). Nice thing about the MS league, is I can sit pretty much under the ref's stand at the pole...