How to shoot sunny lacrosse tourniment?

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

Hey everyone, my little brother has a lacrosse torniment going on next sunday and I figure I'll photograph it for some practice. Thing is, I've never done any sports on a sunny day. It's always been cloudy so I'm just wondering how I would go about taking pictures of these kids assuming it's a sunny day?

What settings should I lean towards? Use any flash to get rid of shadowing if they're close enough? Centerweighted metering? Dial down the exposure compensation a stops?

I just want to try to avoid lots of shadowing, over exposed pics, ect.

Thanks for any help!:lol:

[ElleG83]

i'm in school studying photography and they teach us the f-16 rule which says that on sunny days shooting at ISO 100 your correct exposure would be f-16 at 1/125 of a second. of course you can convert your own exposure if you wanted a faster shutter speed or shallow depth of field, but as long as your conversions are correct you should get the same exposure every time. hope that helps some. :)

[Eric DeCastro]

I would use this same rule of thumb.

i would just paly around with the settings first off, just take a few practice shots, and use yoru histogram.

I personally would start off at f/5.6 in M or AV watch my histogram for blown highlights.

[blinking8s]

Ive shot on some pretty darn bright days, the 20d max's out at 1/8000sec and nothing is more fun that freezing the most intens action, seeing the threads on the baseball ect...ok im a whore

put on your 70-200, mode to Av, f4 (most likely to keep the DOF shollow and blur that BG out), iso 100 if its super bright. use the cusom functions from http://siphoto.com/?canon20D.inc , multi-shot on, ai servo...* will be your AF now after you switch up the custom functions...so you can soom around, use your thumb to AF, and index to shoot...

and let her rip...

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

Wow! Thanks everyone!

That website is very helpful blinking, thanks! :-)

Anyone have other suggestions? :-)

[gmen]

Another technique that works well on bright sunny days is to work in what seems a counter-intuitive fashion - i.e. shoot into the sun.

Assuming that the sun isn't so low that it's shining straight down your lens and you've fitted your lens hood, you'll be ready to go. The key is of course to expose for the shadow areas in manual mode. The best approach is to take an incident light reading with a handheld meter. Alternatively, you'll need to take a spot/partial meter reading with the camera from one of the participants as the basis of your exposure. Strong backlighting will yield an exposure that can be up to +2 stops over the reflected reading from the scene.

Shooting this way will ensure that you are not dealing with the huge contrast range that is present with strong side-lighting or the very harsh images that can occur with intense front-lighting. You will also get a satisfying rimlight around the subject matter making them stand out against what will probably be a quite dark background. It also means that you'll be able to clearly see the faces of the participants which is surely the key to a good sports pic. OK, so you may blow out some of the background highlights (if there are any), some hair and the odd shoulder... but this is far better than having large overexposed areas on the subject matter or their faces being partly obscured by shadow.

Work with your longest glass to make the most of this technique - probably best to shoot at 200mm or above.

Not convinced? Well, here are a couple of examples:

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/pfy500.jpg

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/bq001.JPG

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/a01.jpg

Also, take a second to read Brad Mangin's post in this ss.com thread: http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=11467 (it's the third post down... excellent reading)

Hope that helps a little... and good luck with your shoot!

[blinking8s]

^^

he's always showin off...

;)

[gmen]

^^

he's always showin off...

;)
*lol* Just answerin' the question... OK... OK... so, maybe I got a bit carried away! ;)

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

Woah... so much learn... thanks for that gmen! Very informative, and I can't wait to give it all a try. :-)

You mentioned a handheld light metering device? I've seen them around, but have no clue what they do. Or why anyone would need one. Could you fill me in on this? :-)

Thanks!

[22littlereasons]

I've been thinking about posting the same question for the last few days. White uniforms suck on a bright day. Not to mention a white soccer ball if that's what you happen to be shooting.

I've tried the technique gmen describes quite by accident... as it defied conventional wisdom... and man it works great.

This gallery http://sportslinephoto.com/May%2028/index.htm was shot using the the sun backlight method as it worked great.

Very clever.

[Hydro]

Please, Gavin, don't ever stop helping. I wanted to get more clarification about shooting into the sun (one of several suggested techniques you posted a while back) but feel like I don't want to bug you too much. While typical "nice shot" or "looks a little overexposed" comments are welcome and useful, your detailed advice really helps us noobs jump a rung or two up the ladder.

RICK

[Croasdail]

I just shot the NCAA playoffs and learned a ton - it was my first time shooting Mens Lacrosse... based on the assumption you will be shooting your 70-200 zoom, here are some lessons I learned. If they are playing on a full sized field, 200 really is really limited. If you have plenty of light - look at getting a 1.4 TC to help you out. There are really 3 shooting spots for Lacrosse that work well with a 200. Spend some time behind the net a few feet to the side - if one team is dominating you can spend all day here. Also teams also have a favorite side to attack from - this should become evident really quick. The next is from the corners, a lot of Lacrosse plays are wrapping plays coming from behind the net to a waiting attacker hovering in front. Last come out to the side of the net about 15 to 25 yards in front. This is a great place to get defensive stands for your preferred team. I haven't loaded all the images yet but these ones were shoot with a 200mm lens. The aren't the worlds best but they should give you an idea. Good luck.

Edge of net shot - http://www.pbase.com/atravelor/image/44640065

Corner shot - http://www.pbase.com/atravelor/image/44639967

25 yards in front of net - http://www.pbase.com/atravelor/image/44640266

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

Thanks croasdail! No one has addresed where to shoot from yet, so that's very helpful. :-) I like the edge of the next shot.

[skyphix]

It was extremely sunny the day I shot LaCross. Most of my shots are at F5.6 and my lens is NOT good below F8 so the shots arent fantastic, but the lighting is decent. I shot with the sun behind me and slightly to my left side, I stood in the shade of a building so as to avoid any chance of flare, and went with it. I was on the sideline as I did not know that since I work for the school (and was assigned to take photos of this event for our website) I could go closer than I was, I felt at 170-210mm I was good where I stood.

http://non.skyphix.com/2005/Sports/LaCross/LSI05052005/Small/

[Croasdail]

Gmen (or anyone else who knows) okay - so where are you meeting from and how - with a spot meter perhaps?

[gmen]

Gmen (or anyone else who knows) okay - so where are you meeting from and how - with a spot meter perhaps?
I generally use the handheld meter for the backlit technique - taking an incident reading.

However, if you're going to use the camera then spot-metering is certainly one route to take - using a participant's face as the basis for the reading - alternatively use a grey card.

Or... if the playing surface is grass, a rule of thumb is to meter from the grass and add +2 stops - check the histogram and tweak accordingly. This is a rough and ready method as different times of day and different types of grass can skew the readings :confused:

--- Gavin

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

Huh..... that's interesting! What's spot-metering though...?:o

[PhotosGuy]

What's spot-metering though...? It's like a hand held meter with a built in telephotowhicj reads a very small area.
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=exposure&num=10&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=spot+metering&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images