Few From Falcons Game. C&C please

[BaseballPhotographer]

Wet to Falcons game at a local highschool near me. Took some great shots. Met some amazing people. Talked to the athletes, coaches, owner, and other photographers. It was like a dream come true for me. I have always had to shoot from the stands, but I got on the field tonight and had the time of my life. Thanks to everyone on the forum who has helped me. Everyone here is so great.

God Bless,
Stephen

[BaseballPhotographer]

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[BaseballPhotographer]

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[BaseballPhotographer]

last few.....

[lavanut]

Hey! Looks like you got some good shots, especially the candids of the players. I'll post a few of mine here later today and a link to more. I haven't had time to go through all of them yet.

I'm glad you had a good time. I did too, and the Falcons & Mill Creek deserve a big kudos for putting on that event. It was well done (except for the traffic getting out of there). Maybe some folks will go to the Dome today and post more pix.

[BaseballPhotographer]

If they arnt good at all, tell me whats bad about them and what I could do to make them better. I can handle it, I promise.

Stephen

[lavanut]

OK, here are a few more comments. On your action shots, especially the wider one, the whites are too blown out on the pants. If you were using the 75-300, it's hard to get that to a fast enough aperture to do what you want to do. You also can't always trust the camera's meter when you have extremes of light & dark. Take it as a suggestion and set things manually. You may have to do some touch up in PP to compensate.

As I'm learning, I've found that for action, as a general rule, shoot with a large aperture and fast shutter speed to freeze action, if that's what you want to do. For football, this past week in shooting the Falcons, I tried to stay above 1/500 and preferably faster. I adjusted ISO up as the lighting went down Friday. I started the game at ISO400 and ended at 1600.

I would occasionally take a stationary shot of the players to check my exposure and adjust if necessary before trying to shoot the action as the lighting changed. In PP, it's easier to bring up dark areas on a photo than it is to recover white areas that are over exposed.

I know there are other folks here who can probably give much beter advice, but these are a few things I've learned recently. I'm still tweaking and trying to improve. The best advice is to go shoot, come back home and analyze your shots & settings, and learn from what worked and what didn't. Take that knowledge out with you next time and try again. Keep doing it until you get the shots you want.
Here are a few of my favorites from the other night. I welcome C&C as well!
http://lh4.ggpht.com/Lavanut/SJZxQwUynII/AAAAAAAABmU/hvNDEuShS_M/IMG_0604.jpg?imgmax=640

http://lh3.ggpht.com/Lavanut/SJZyJVjPIlI/AAAAAAAABoo/4E5tIkzHAhg/IMG_0796.jpg?imgmax=720

http://lh3.ggpht.com/Lavanut/SJZy1dML03I/AAAAAAAABqk/HBEG0OLanGM/IMG_0869.jpg?imgmax=720

[BaseballPhotographer]

Lavanut- thanks so much for all your advice. In your PM to me, you said you upgraded to a faster lens and a faster camera, when you said faster camera, did you mean faster as in "fps?" If your ok with it, id love to meet up with you again and just shoot with you, I could leran a lot from you and anybody else.

[lavanut]

Yes, faster fps. 3.5 wasn't fast enough for what I wanted to do. On the 40D, 6.5 (when it hits it) does pretty good, but I'd love to shoot one with 8 or even the 1D MarkIII at 10fps. For now, as I'm learning, the 40D will do until I can afford my dream gear.

I'll let you know when I go out to shoot again. This week work has me pretty covered up. If you can get to the Falcons' camp this week, go and shoot. I learn something every time I go! Check the Atlanta POTNers. I think some folks there may be going Thurs or Fri. Camp may not be open to the public past this week. I haven't checked lately though.