Saturday Night Soccer [Ajman vs. AlSha'ab]

[Tareq]

Some shots from the match on last Saturday, at night, started at 20:00 and ended at around 22:00.

The match was boring, the two teams were equal in skills, but at the end we win, Ajman vs. AlSha'ab 2-1.

I was using 1D Mark III + 300 f2.8L IS, ISO between 800 and 1600.

1.
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/7964/d30438ng7.jpg

2.
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/424/d30487cz4.jpg

3.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5172/d30507dw3.jpg

4.
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/5836/d30538gy3.jpg

5.
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/912/d30580ms3.jpg

6.
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/7389/d30621fy5.jpg

7.
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1975/d30650ew5.jpg

8.
http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/2430/d30657hp3.jpg


C&C welcome

[tmalone893]

those are some great shots. I wished I could get that for my son's night games.:(

[Tareq]

those are some great shots. I wished I could get that for my son's night games.:(

Thanks a lot!

And i wish if i live there to do that for your son FREE. :)

[swampler]

Excellent work and timing. Only thing is they look a little yellowish.

[convergent]

Those are some great shots... love 1 and 4 the best. I noticed that you are cropping landscape mode there and got some good results. I always shoot portrait mode and will crop down to landscape mode if the composition fits it and the subject was far away. I'm just wondering if you always shoot landscape mode for soccer?

[Eric2007]

WOW...very nice! Gotta love the results of a MkIII and 300f2.8...you get what you pay for! 1, 3 and 7 stand out for me however, all are really good!

[prime80]

Great shots, Tareq! Every set just seems to get better and better...

[Tareq]

Excellent work and timing. Only thing is they look a little yellowish.

Thank you very much.
Yes, this yellowish cast is really bugging me, i shoot in RAW and whatever WB i shoot i can't get the right color, but don't forget it is night shot and the lights even they are little better now but i can't have better results with higher ISO but i think maybe when i used some kind of NN it gave that yellowish look maybe.

Those are some great shots... love 1 and 4 the best. I noticed that you are cropping landscape mode there and got some good results. I always shoot portrait mode and will crop down to landscape mode if the composition fits it and the subject was far away. I'm just wondering if you always shoot landscape mode for soccer?

Thank you very much.
Yes, i always shoot in landscape orientation then i crop it in portraits if the subject fits or if i want tighter, i tried some portraits orientation but i many times end up with many cut shots, in fact portraits is better to do when the ball is going to be between 2 players only or 3 at most, but in open play and many players there and they are running you will have a risk that you may miss an action [a player hand, a ball, a head,...] in portraits orientation, but to be honest i am not expert in sports at all and i just shoot to learn.

WOW...very nice! Gotta love the results of a MkIII and 300f2.8...you get what you pay for! 1, 3 and 7 stand out for me however, all are really good!

Yeah, i am sure you will love the combo, sometimes i feel i want to get 400 f2.8 but as long i am still learning with my 300 then no rush for 400.

Great shots, Tareq! Every set just seems to get better and better...

Thank you very much.
Too bad that all or most of those matches will be during the night time, and i had hard time to change the ISO and shutter speed for the best results, which i can shoot in the day time for much more better and sharper results.

[convergent]

Thank you very much.
Yes, i always shoot in landscape orientation then i crop it in portraits if the subject fits or if i want tighter, i tried some portraits orientation but i many times end up with many cut shots, in fact portraits is better to do when the ball is going to be between 2 players only or 3 at most, but in open play and many players there and they are running you will have a risk that you may miss an action [a player hand, a ball, a head,...] in portraits orientation, but to be honest i am not expert in sports at all and i just shoot to learn.

Interesting... I find that I often cut off heads and feet when I don't shoot in portrait. Its probably the lens difference. I shoot with the 400 and more often than not have a TC1.4 on it... I think you said you were shooting with the 300 which would give you more headroom. My customers often want landscape shots, so I will try to see if I can position myself to shoot more landscape and see what I get.

[Tareq]

Interesting... I find that I often cut off heads and feet when I don't shoot in portrait. Its probably the lens difference. I shoot with the 400 and more often than not have a TC1.4 on it... I think you said you were shooting with the 300 which would give you more headroom. My customers often want landscape shots, so I will try to see if I can position myself to shoot more landscape and see what I get.

Yes, i use 300, 400 in our field or stadium is too much, even many photographers here using 70-200, thats why i go with landscape mode, and in fact i will use portrait mode mostly in indoors sports [basketball, volleyball,...].
I think if i will use 400, then i will have more tighter shots, maybe if i want more room with 400 then i will use my 1Ds3 but i don't prefer full frame and slower camera for sports in general.

[Croasdail]

Hey Tareq, nicely done. My only question for you is that the colors look a little flattened. Did you apply any NR on these, or was that just a result of very neutral lighting on this field? I think you have finally got a kit that agrees with you though, looks really good.

[Tareq]

Hey Tareq, nicely done. My only question for you is that the colors look a little flattened. Did you apply any NR on these, or was that just a result of very neutral lighting on this field? I think you have finally got a kit that agrees with you though, looks really good.

I can't be sure about what is the cause of those flattened colors, and yes, i applied just DPP NR, i know it is bad but i was looking to see if they enhanced it within new versions, but when i checked the original i feel it is not much better than those NR applied, and also i will blame that neutral lighting is giving some kind of yellow/green cast, so it seems the colors are not accurate enough, and do you think using higher ISO cause that flat colors?

I had 300 about more than 1 year now but didn't use it much, and i was using 1D MarkIIN, but now i became an official shooter in our local area Sports club to shoot in this Soccer 2008-2009 league.

[swampler]

Have you tried using custom white balance? Perhaps this would help with the yellow tint?

[Croasdail]

Congrats on the the job... well done.

Couple of things here. Looking at the file in CS, it looks less flat, and I attribute that to the file being in Adobe RGB still. When posting, you will get more vibrant colors by converting to sRGB. Second thing, color cast. It is easily fixed by either reducing the yellow value in the file, or increasing blue slightly. The will pull out the greenishness. Finally, the one file I looked at was only at ISO 1250. With that camera you should freely move up to 1600 without issue. This would have bumped your shutter speed some and helped. A few of these changes and your shots will go from good to really good in no time.

[crazyskillz07]

#8 would look awesome if it were in portrait showing the ground below them to give a sense of their height.

[Tareq]

Have you tried using custom white balance? Perhaps this would help with the yellow tint?

WOW, it will take time to do it, sometimes i come late or no time to do it in the stadium.

Congrats on the the job... well done.

Couple of things here. Looking at the file in CS, it looks less flat, and I attribute that to the file being in Adobe RGB still. When posting, you will get more vibrant colors by converting to sRGB. Second thing, color cast. It is easily fixed by either reducing the yellow value in the file, or increasing blue slightly. The will pull out the greenishness. Finally, the one file I looked at was only at ISO 1250. With that camera you should freely move up to 1600 without issue. This would have bumped your shutter speed some and helped. A few of these changes and your shots will go from good to really good in no time.

Thank you very much.
In fact those guides or tips i was looking for, i asked few times here about the settings for shooting soccer/football at night but didn't get something very helpful, and i changed between ISO to see which one is the best and how fast i can go with each ISO value, and i found that even with ISO 1600 i can get good results because i can use higher shutter speed, and this camera really shining for that.
I will post one shot of above originally without any pp to see if i did wrong with my pp in fact.

#8 would look awesome if it were in portrait showing the ground below them to give a sense of their height.

I don't think i got that shot, i will check if i got the ground in the original one and i cropped it, if no then this is all what i did, out soccer are bad, not so fast or interesting as in Europe, wish i can go there to shoot.

[Tareq]

OK, those are 3 shots of above, sorry gals, but it is my bad pp, the originals turn much better than what i did, but i don't know why they turn like that, i am sure it is because of that NR applied and changing the WB to something else maybe.

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/8861/d304382mx0.jpg

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/307/d305072ex5.jpg

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/3586/d305382ke0.jpg

[Tareq]

OK, i found out what is the problem, it is with the correct convert with the correct color management on DPP, but i tried to use Photoshop to save as web this time.