Rugby from today (3rd Feb, 07)

[Tall_Paul_2000]

A veritable game of two halves....for me that is, not the team! First half was a real pain, light was straight down the ground, so shooting the team I was covering was a little bit of a challenge.....rather extreme contre jour issues in places or alternatively rather harsh shadows on one side of the person and bright highlights on the others!! Second half was a lot better, sun behind led to some corking colours...sadly the action just stayed away from me so it turned into a bit of a "stock-fest"!

All these were on the 1d with 300 + 1.4 combo, ISO200 in parts, although because of the stand throwing shadows onto the pitch, ISO320 was also used to get a high enough shutter speed in the shadows.

Enjoy and thanks for looking!

1.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_199.jpg

2.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_194.jpg

3.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_010.jpg

4.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_078.jpg

5.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_034.jpg

6.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_003.jpg

7.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_040.jpg

8.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_093.jpg

[jim9449]

As usual great action Paul, Johnny had some comeback today! Very interesting,

[Tall_Paul_2000]

Thanks Jim,

I agree - Mr Wilkinson was quite good yesterday, although I think the two key people for me were Farrell and Ellis.....Ellis was fabulous, especially so when compared to his previous performances for England. That said, the scoreline did flatter us somewhat!!!

[jim9449]

Thanks Jim,

I agree - Mr Wilkinson was quite good yesterday, although I think the two key people for me were Farrell and Ellis.....Ellis was fabulous, especially so when compared to his previous performances for England. That said, the scoreline did flatter us somewhat!!!

I agree Ellis was my man of the match

[Big Hands]

Nice action Paul, but they all look underexposed by a fair amount to me. Of course the dark kits didn't do you any favors. I've had better luck in those situations when I turned down the in-camera contrast.

Regards,
Jeff

[gsgary]

Great shots, i like #6 best

[Tall_Paul_2000]

Thanks Jeff - although your comment about the dark kits baffles me since that would cause the in camera metering to overexpose wouldn't it? or am I not getting what you meant?

Turning down the contrast isn't something you can do on the fly on the mk1 bodies, unless you have custom curves loaded.

I agree about the underexposure on some of them, however the choice from yesterday was to either shoot and expose for the shadows (in which case I'd have lost all detail in the highlights as they were about 2.5-3 stops different from the shadows) or to try and capture some detail in both...which is what ultimately I did.

Add to that the fact that parts of the pitch were in complete shade due to a combo of the stands and and trees around the pitch then it led to some of the hardest conditions I have shot in.

[Tall_Paul_2000]

Great shots, i like #6 best


Thanks Gary

[Big Hands]

Paul, several are sidelit, so depending on how they are metered, might be taking that into account. The the dark kits are shaded so you have quite a bit of detail lost in the shadow areas. Since you do OK others to edit your images, I did a quickie with the shadow/highlight too to bring out some of that detail. It's stil looks pretty high contrast to me, but maybe I'm off....

http://photos.imageevent.com/johansen01/pixelpeepersdelight/oddballstuff1/demonstrationstuff1/websize/wawawaw%2001b.jpg

Regards,
Jeff

[Tall_Paul_2000]

Jeff, I think I must have misinterpreted what you meant in your original post.

Out of interest, how would you have metered it? I would normally have shot in Manual (as I did earlier in the day at the hockey with good results) however the stands around the pitch as well as trees meant that the lighting was highly varied over the pitch - with 1 stop difference between areas.

The alteration looks good - have taken it a step further with this very quick tweak:

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/Tall_paul_2000/CHSzzPH030207CRCWE_010POTN.jpg

[Nick C.]

Nice shooting, Paul.
I think you've managed such contrasty lighting pretty well.
Because you've minimised any lost detail in both highlights and shadows you can make some adjustments in post (if time permits of course). I think that's probably the only way you're going to get more of an even exposure in such circumstances.

May I offer my example of the image edited above:

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