Youth sports attempts C&C please

Just looking to see if you all think I need to work on the same things I think I need to work on. These are about as good as it gets for me.

Mostly soccer...

#1

nice captures watch your WB and saturation level

I agree nice capture

Thanks. What's the symptom of too much saturation? Is it loss of depth in the reds?

Really nice shots. On my monitor 1, 3, 4 seem a slight bit on the red/orange side. But reallly nice shots. The timing and stop action is great.

1) Out of focus. Look at the grass, it's in focus behind her.

2) See if you can play with the shadows to bring out the kid's face more.

3) Crop tighter, looks a tad bit under-exposed and orange.

4) Looks like you missed the peak moment, plus it's slightly out of focus and orange again.

5) Good shot, I would crop in tighter

Did you mean to shoot wide open on most of those shots?

Kind of hard to tell, but were you actually close enough to fill the frame with a 200mm, or did you crop a lot of the image out to get the finals? Nothing wrong with that, but if you are that close, your DoF is going to be a lot thinner shooting at 2.8, and that will be an issue with catching the action in focus. Esp with a T2i, the autofocus is pretty good, but it's not super fast either. Shooting stopped down will give you a little more room to work, I think.


really like the swimmer

xchangx wrote in post #14440623
1) Out of focus. Look at the grass, it's in focus behind her.

Yep, back button got me there. I felt confident on the place kick, and pre-focused the ball on the ground. Then I shot and she was quite a bit in front of that spot. Physically, I see now how this is the wrong focal plane if I'm trying to capture this part of the kick -- I need to trust the AI SERVO for this one.

xchangx wrote in post #14440623
2) See if you can play with the shadows to bring out the kid's face more.

I haven't gotten much into pixel editing yet. These are all just RAW processed, but I see how that is limiting the result.

xchangx wrote in post #14440623
3) Crop tighter, looks a tad bit under-exposed and orange.

In my first post, I was struck to see how different my post processing is from week to week. I agree -- orange looking. Crop too. Thanks.

xchangx wrote in post #14440623
4) Looks like you missed the peak moment, plus it's slightly out of focus and orange again.

For this one, I was going for the struggle, not ball action -- but that may not be coming across. This time I'll blame the focus on AI SERVO (or my use of it -- maybe not tracking continuously, causing a hunt)

xchangx wrote in post #14440623
5) Good shot, I would crop in tighter

That one's actually my kid, and SWMBO said "no" to my tighter crop (my kid in #3 too)

I really appreciate these notes. I'll keep them in mind.

Flores wrote in post #14440779
Did you mean to shoot wide open on most of those shots?

Kind of hard to tell, but were you actually close enough to fill the frame with a 200mm, or did you crop a lot of the image out to get the finals? Nothing wrong with that, but if you are that close, your DoF is going to be a lot thinner shooting at 2.8, and that will be an issue with catching the action in focus. Esp with a T2i, the autofocus is pretty good, but it's not super fast either. Shooting stopped down will give you a little more room to work, I think.


really like the swimmer

I pretty much always shoot wide open because the backgrounds are often cluttered at the fields (I've chosen less cluttered shots here). I did shoot a game at f/4 earlier in the season, so I'll revisit that set and see about future shooting. I've got some more swimming coming up, and I may alternate between 2.8 and 5.6 or something just to help out the keeper rate, depending on the background.

Most of these are shot at 25-40 yards, and that's just out of reach for 200mm, so pretty heavy cropping and bigger DoF. I'm certainly seeing what you're saying as I'm clipping the depth on some of these shots.

waterrockets wrote in post #14441315
Yep, back button got me there. I felt confident on the place kick, and pre-focused the ball on the ground. Then I shot and she was quite a bit in front of that spot. Physically, I see now how this is the wrong focal plane if I'm trying to capture this part of the kick -- I need to trust the AI SERVO for this one.

I haven't gotten much into pixel editing yet. These are all just RAW processed, but I see how that is limiting the result.

In my first post, I was struck to see how different my post processing is from week to week. I agree -- orange looking. Crop too. Thanks.

For this one, I was going for the struggle, not ball action -- but that may not be coming across. This time I'll blame the focus on AI SERVO (or my use of it -- maybe not tracking continuously, causing a hunt)

That one's actually my kid, and SWMBO said "no" to my tighter crop (my kid in #3 too)

I really appreciate these notes. I'll keep them in mind.

I pretty much always shoot wide open because the backgrounds are often cluttered at the fields (I've chosen less cluttered shots here). I did shoot a game at f/4 earlier in the season, so I'll revisit that set and see about future shooting. I've got some more swimming coming up, and I may alternate between 2.8 and 5.6 or something just to help out the keeper rate, depending on the background.

Most of these are shot at 25-40 yards, and that's just out of reach for 200mm, so pretty heavy cropping and bigger DoF. I'm certainly seeing what you're saying as I'm clipping the depth on some of these shots.

Shooting wide open is fine, just be aware of what the focus point is on and how close they are. The closer they are the narrower the DOF is.

As for the struggling/crop one, if the ball was closer to them I could see the struggle, but since the ball is too far away it seems to me that she already kicked it.

Get rid of the guy in the background on #4.