First time shooting football

Hi all. So i am doing a personal project here where i get to follow and shoot the football games played in grass root level here in London and get to shoot both on and off the pitch.

Here is some images i took last week. Please Critic as harsh as you can

Thanks

1

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/MciB​ZT

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2aSV​NXN

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/29RP​ewN

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/MciJ​hH

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2aXn​uwn

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2b4D​N8N

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/29yX​ZFr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/29yY​8GM

jonneymendoza wrote in post #18709244
Hi all. So i am doing a personal project here where i get to follow and shoot the football games played in grass root level here in London and get to shoot both on and off the pitch.

Here is some images i took last week. Please Critic as harsh as you can

Thanks/

Shot #1 is the weakest of the set. Waaayyyy too loose, no faces. Just butts. Remember to shoot tight, crop tighter! Also, why ISO 2500 with 1/4000 shutter speed when there is no action?

The second image is much better. Sure, I'd prefer to have the ball in the image but in this case we know they are both looking at the ball, the shot is tight, both faces are compelling and there is plenty of action. Good shot.

Number 3 is a great capture. Crop it tighter and the action will draw us into the picture even more.

Shot #4 is a good image with a nice crop. You should have used that same crop on #5. No need to keep all that sky. I'd have opened up the shadows of the face on the black player.

Six and Seven are fine but on #7 a tighter crop would have been preferable.

#8 was fine. Some would complain about chopping off the heads but in my view the shot is fine as is.

In terms of your post processing, I think if you would open up the shadows and brought down the highlights, that would improve your images. Incidentally, 1/5000 is way too fast for a shutter speed. You can shoot at 1/1000 sec and have a lower ISO for better image quality. These are just my opinions. I think you did a great job for your first time! Keep shooting and posting.

Phil Zivnuska

Zivnuska wrote in post #18709295
Shot #1 is the weakest of the set. Waaayyyy too loose, no faces. Just butts. Remember to shoot tight, crop tighter! Also, why ISO 2500 with 1/4000 shutter speed when there is no action?

The second image is much better. Sure, I'd prefer to have the ball in the image but in this case we know they are both looking at the ball, the shot is tight, both faces are compelling and there is plenty of action. Good shot.

Number 3 is a great capture. Crop it tighter and the action will draw us into the picture even more.

Shot #4 is a good image with a nice crop. You should have used that same crop on #5. No need to keep all that sky. I'd have opened up the shadows of the face on the black player.

Six and Seven are fine but on #7 a tighter crop would have been preferable.

#8 was fine. Some would complain about chopping off the heads but in my view the shot is fine as is.

In terms of your post processing, I think if you would open up the shadows and brought down the highlights, that would improve your images. Incidentally, 1/5000 is way too fast for a shutter speed. You can shoot at 1/1000 sec and have a lower ISO for better image quality. These are just my opinions. I think you did a great job for your first time! Keep shooting and posting.

Phil Zivnuska

Awsome thanks! I will try and crop tighter for my shots and bring up the shadows a bit more

shooting football/soccer is additcted!

One other thing... ....

I really like how you got low in shooting your shots. That low perspective really helps make the action compelling.

Phil

Agree with the above, Some great shots from getting down low.

"Please Critic as harsh as you can" OK


Crop tight..... and then crop a little tighter
Straighten the lines, the horizon line where the grass meets the tress needs to be straight.
Check your white balance and tint...it looks a little on the green side.
No need to shoot soccer/football at 1/5000 when your ISO is so high. Shutter speed between 1/1000 - 1/1600 is plenty.


Try and shoot 2 eyes & a ball. Pic #2 is a great exception.

For me pic 3 is 'peak action' but way too loose. With no faces/expression would have been the delete key for me.

Focus point on shot 4 is the back of player number #4 not the face of the player coming towards you, but that happens...a lot

Pic 5 needs to be cropped way tighter.

Pic 6, not much going on

Pic 7 is peak action and perfect timing, cant help that they were facing the wrong way, it happens.

shady954 wrote in post #18710311
Agree with the above, Some great shots from getting down low.

"Please Critic as harsh as you can" OK


Crop tight..... and then crop a little tighter
Straighten the lines, the horizon line where the grass meets the tress needs to be straight.
Check your white balance and tint...it looks a little on the green side.
No need to shoot soccer/football at 1/5000 when your ISO is so high. Shutter speed between 1/1000 - 1/1600 is plenty.


Try and shoot 2 eyes & a ball. Pic #2 is a great exception.

For me pic 3 is 'peak action' but way too loose. With no faces/expression would have been the delete key for me.

Focus point on shot 4 is the back of player number #4 not the face of the player coming towards you, but that happens...a lot

Pic 5 needs to be cropped way tighter.

Pic 6, not much going on

Pic 7 is peak action and perfect timing, cant help that they were facing the wrong way, it happens.

awsome thanks for the great feedback!

Regarding cropping, definitely shoot a bit loose and then crop afterwards. This will allow you to recompose during post to get the content you really want in the photo.

For example in this photo, there are alot of guys running for the quarterback in our version of football (but different game, I know), but I felt it didn't do anything for the photo, so poof, they are gone.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18710468
Regarding cropping, definitely shoot a bit loose and then crop afterwards. This will allow you to recompose during post to get the content you really want in the photo.

For example in this photo, there are alot of guys running for the quarterback in our version of football (but different game, I know), but I felt it didn't do anything for the photo, so poof, they are gone.

Now in this shot, I wanted to crop more, but unfortunately there is no clean break that could be made, so I went back into the action a bit to find where I could crop. That is always an issue for how I shoot, many times there isn't a clean break in the action where I can pull out a crop. So to combat that, I take ALOT of photos during the action and find the one I can work with.

So shoot loose and many frames, then go back, and find those you can crop out cleanly to get the action to pop. I had to go to prior action in this sequence to crop more tightly. Plus I get the shot of the defender missing the quarterback completely, which is kinda funny by itself.

awsome thanks.

Do you tend to lose IQ if you crop too much or it doesnt matter really for this type of photography that you are not framing and using all the MP of your sensor?

My A9 only has 24mp and some crops may result to a 10mp file!

In these shots I used a 2x on the 70-200 to help combat too heavy a crop. The higher the ISO, the more detrimental a heavy crop can be.

Here are Some more pics i took a few weeks ago after some great feedback from you all

1.

And more

9

17

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2acZ​oSb

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/MxHy​EZ

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2biF​zpT

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/29Vc​i22

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/MxHD​2K

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/29Vc​g9K

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2acZ​8mm

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/28xC​4Rj

Action shots look alot better when:
- the ball is in the scene
- there aren't obstacles between the ball and/or the player
- there are faces in the scene, there are a few shots where shooting the back of a player might be good, but most of the time, you want frontal shots


I like several of the shots, great job!

Per my last point above, I kept this shot, only because I know that the QB gets tackled and fumbles, so the other team jump on the ball and get a TD. However the shot here doesn't tell that story, so purely from a single shot perspective, it is marginally interesting.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18719369
Action shots look alot better when:
- the ball is in the scene
- there aren't obstacles between the ball and/or the player
- there are faces in the scene, there are a few shots where shooting the back of a player might be good, but most of the time, you want frontal shots


I like several of the shots, great job!

Per my last point above, I kept this shot, only because I know that the QB gets tackled and fumbles, so the other team jump on the ball and get a TD. However the shot here doesn't tell that story, so purely from a single shot perspective, it is marginally interesting.

Quality thanks I will take note of all these points and try and apply it to my images

jonneymendoza wrote in post #18711012
My A9 only has 24mp and some crops may result to a 10mp file!

Consider the output size. Most of the stuff I shoot sadly only gets seen on a phone so it doesn't really matter. Top end phone screens are only in the 3-4 MP range. I'm not saying to shoot unnecessarily wide, but don't be afraid to crop to improve composition if the expected output medium doesn't require high MP.