Drake Women's Soccer

Shot on a bright, sunny day with a Canon 50D and 70-200mm f/2.8.

Struggled with keeping the shutter speed at a reasonable amount. Something about 1/5000 just seems too fast. Kept turning down the ISO.

Pictures still seem out of focus. And there are blue tones everywhere.

Could use some tips on shooting in that sunny weather and also on PP pictures from these conditions. Thanks.

1.

Good action captures, but they definitely need a WB adjustment.

Shooting backlit will cause AF to struggle

gettingstarted wrote in post #15185167
Shot on a bright, sunny day with a Canon 50D and 70-200mm f/2.8.

Struggled with keeping the shutter speed at a reasonable amount. Something about 1/5000 just seems too fast. Kept turning down the ISO.

Could use some tips on shooting in that sunny weather ........

gettingstarted,

You stayed at F2.8? F9 or greater would have helped slow the shutter speed and ISO 100 would have been fine. F9 would have also kept more in focus.

rrblint - Any suggestions on which way to look? They are all large JPEGs, so there is no RAW adjustments to be made.

ajaffe - Thanks. I did not know that.

PaulMedik - I considered that, but then how to separate the players from the background?

Don't shoot at f9 unless you have a specific need to. Shutter speed being too fast is not a problem.

Shooting backlit is tough, don't see a need to bring up the ISO if there's plenty of light.

You could stop down to f4 to help focus a bit but I wouldn't go down as far as f8/9.

gettingstarted wrote in post #15187197
......
PaulMedik - I considered that, but then how to separate the players from the background?

gettingstarted,

F9 wont give you that nice bokeh, but it will allow you to have more areas in focus which will increase the odds of the players being in focus. F2.8 is most beneficial under the lights when you need to gather as much light as possible, but it is less forgiving in terms of focus points.

PaulMedik wrote in post #15187579
gettingstarted,

F9 wont give you that nice bokeh, but it will allow you to have more areas in focus which will increase the odds of the players being in focus. F2.8 is most beneficial under the lights when you need to gather as much light as possible, but it is less forgiving in terms of focus points.

F9 won't separate players from the background. Higher shutter speed isn't the problem.

elrey2375 wrote in post #15188127
F9 won't separate players from the background. Higher shutter speed isn't the problem.

elrey2375,

I agree that F9 will not separate players from the background. I never said nor implied that it would. The OP wanted to know what to change to be able to lower the shutter speed; changing to F9 will allow him to do that.

Personally I'd have cropped much tighter on several of the pics (#4, 5, and 6 are tight enough), but if the OP wants to show several players in focus in a wide shot, then F9 will allow him to have all of those players in focus.

Bokeh or background blur is nice for many purposes, but in #2 and #4 the OP obviously wanted to show several players at various distances and at a wide angle. F9 would allow him to achieve focus on all the players in those shots though he would sacrifice the bokeh. Sometimes it's more important to show what happened instead of just a pretty picture.

PaulMedik wrote in post #15188671
elrey2375,

I agree that F9 will not separate players from the background. I never said nor implied that it would. The OP wanted to know what to change to be able to lower the shutter speed; changing to F9 will allow him to do that.

Personally I'd have cropped much tighter on several of the pics (#4, 5, and 6 are tight enough), but if the OP wants to show several players in focus in a wide shot, then F9 will allow him to have all of those players in focus.

Bokeh or background blur is nice for many purposes, but in #2 and #4 the OP obviously wanted to show several players at various distances and at a wide angle. F9 would allow him to achieve focus on all the players in those shots though he would sacrifice the bokeh. Sometimes it's more important to show what happened instead of just a pretty picture.

Yes, it will allow for several players to be in acceptable focus, only those in the focal plane will truly be in focus, however. As for the OP, I would also wonder what metering he was using.

There's a reason why you won't find a professional sports photographer, especially for for paper or wire service, shooting f/9 action shots. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 1/5000th shutter speed. It's just the name of the game when shooting wide open in direct sun. Certainly, stopping down can give you some benefits in a sport like soccer, and it will extend your margin of error with focus, but to do so only because you feel like the shutter speed is "too high" isn't necessary. I'll stop down to f/4 sometimes, but rarely slower... again, it just isn't necessary to stop down beyond that for action shots. If you still can't grab sharp focus at f/4, then you should be checking your technique or equipment, not stopping down further.

OP, many of your shots are underexposed, looking at the faces. Part of that, as others have mentioned, is due to you position to the sun. When forced to shoot side to backlit, don't be afraid to blow out those white uniforms quite a bit in order to get the face properly lit. You can always recover highlights and bring up the shadows in post... shoot raw if you aren't already. During these direct sun games, experiment with position. Shooting directly backlit can yield awesome shots if done right. For now though, I'd stick with putting your back to the sun whenever possible. Don't know what metering mode or method you're using, or if you're in manual mode or aperture/shutter priority... those details are always nice. As far as focus, again, details on your settings/technique would be nice. Looks like you just backfocused on the background in #4. The images are really too small to really see what is/isn't in focus.White balance looks a little off in a few, but that shouldn't be a problem if you're shooting raw.

Also, crop tighter if you can.

For the most part, I had the sun to my back. I was shooting in manual mode with the aperture set at 2.8. I was using spot metering. Any suggestions on helping keep the metering consistent? I was having to adjust the shutter speed every few seconds.

I haven't struggled with landing the focus point in the past, but the colors and the WB really seem to be blown in most of them.

I am really to any suggestions on how to save these images (to the extent that they can be saved) and how to prevent this from happening in the future.

Sometimes a day of shooting will really remind a person of how little they actually know.

Look at the shadows. They are predominately pointing to the side... the sun was not at your back in these particular shots. Why were you having to change the shutter speed? Was the light changing (clouds?)? Or were you just following the meter? As far as color, it isn't too bad... you can't expect too much during a full-sun game. If you're looking for PP advice, post what settings you used and the application you used. If you have the means to host the raw file somewhere, then posting a link to it would help as well.

abruckse wrote in post #15188945
Look at the shadows. They are predominately pointing to the side... the sun was not at your back in these particular shots. Why were you having to change the shutter speed? Was the light changing (clouds?)? Or were you just following the meter? As far as color, it isn't too bad... you can't expect too much during a full-sun game. If you're looking for PP advice, post what settings you used and the application you used. If you have the means to host the raw file somewhere, then posting a link to it would help as well.

Agreed. On every photo, the shadows are indicating that the sun was to your left, not behind you. Since the players were straight on to you, they're in shadow and their sides are lit. Put the sun behind you and it should clear up your problem.