SUNY Oneonta Women's Soccer - First Pics Posted

[Hoptography]

Hello, this is the first time I've posted pictures here. I've only been shooting sports for this semester, and I learn more each time I go!

Here are a few shots, all cropped and sharpened a bit in PP. Please help me out with suggestions and comments! Be as brutal as you need to be, I'm a new guy wanting to do whatever it takes to improve.

Shots were taken with a 400D/XTi and Canon 70-200 f/4 non-IS, AV mode, Center Focus Point, AI Servo. It was a cloudy day, with breaks of sun, so I kept changing my ISO between 200-400.


1.
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg204/erikhoppy/Sports%20Shots/IMG_9729.jpg
2.
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg204/erikhoppy/Sports%20Shots/IMG_9734.jpg

Also, looks like Photobucket has degraded them a bit, and I'm not sure my Sharpening was successful.

Help me out please!

Thanks

[nureality]

A couple ideas.

I went to SUCO for a year back in the day and partied my way out of there... fun town.
I hope the school is still commanding the partying crown for the North East.

What f-stop were these shot at? The first one seems to be a bit deep for f/4, was it in the 4.5-5.6 range? If you're adjusting the f-stop to make up for exposure in between switching the ISO's back and forth, you should try setting ISO to ISO-Auto (at least thats what I do on my 40D, it tends to stay under ISO800 so its fine). That way you could stay locked into the same f/stop for the majority of your shooting until you want to stop down in order to do something else.

I find when I'm shooting sports, I'll meter the field, and then depending on the tones of the uniforms of the players add or subtract 2/3 stops depending on the uniforms. That tends to give me a decent starting point for exposure. All that while working wide open and zoomed all the way in on ISO 100 (on a bright day) or ISO 200 (any kind of cloud cover). If the shutter speed in Av comes up less than 1/1250 or even 1/1600 (for faster action sports), I move up a stop on the ISO. I generally hate shooting north of ISO 800. Hopefully the 50D changes my mind on that. My goal is to shoot wide open and at a shutter speed faster than 1/1600 usually. Ultimate goal - wide open @ 1/2500 or faster.

YMMV

In the first shot, the focus seems to be at the knees of the player, her face is a bit soft, what shutterspeed and aperture is that shot?

In the second shot, the focus seems to be on the player in white (#16) not on the girl in green (#15). Given the DOF of that shot, I'm callin that one an f/4 shot. The shutterspeed is not fast enough tho.

[khall]

I would shoot wide open and adjust the ISO so that the shutter speed is more than 1/1000

[Hoptography]

^That is exactly what I did.

[clarence]

The shutterspeed is not fast enough tho.

IEXIF:
1st picture: 1/4000", 113mm, f/4, ISO400
2nd picture: 1/4000", 200mm, f/4, ISO400

[nureality]

IEXIF:
1st picture: 1/4000", 113mm, f/4, ISO400
2nd picture: 1/4000", 200mm, f/4, ISO400

Well obviously that should be fast enough, then you have to consider the focusing issue then.

Its probably just me but the first shot seems out of focus because her face doesn't seperate itself from the OOF background (due to the player behind her) which gives the shot the feeling of being OOF. At least to me.
What I'd do with that shot would be to select out the subject and add sharpening with care to bring out the edges of her face. And if you have DOF-Creator plug-in... I'd force more bokeh on the background to seperate the subject more.

The second shot unfortunately has the focus wrong (for my tastes, anyways). If I shot that scene the focus has to be on either #15 or the goalie. The #16 just doesn't work for composition. Its one thing if she's your girlfriend and you wanna get a nice shot for her... but this one doesn't really flatter that girl.

-Alan

[Hoptography]

Ha, no girlfriend!

Thanks for the comments! I'll have to get better at tracking my subject in AI Servo mode. Maybe the USM is faster than I thought and I'm loosing slight focus because of poor tracking with my center focus point.

Shooting again this afternoon, I'll try it out again.

Thanks for the comments.