Learning Football

i've been trying to learn how to shoot football for the last few weeks. i was excited this week when i received my new 30D. i hoped it would be more suited towards football than my 300D. it is. af is so nice! the increased buffer is also wonderful.

here's how my previous attempts looked with the 300D. http://www.photography​-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=151467

today, it was overcast. it was bright and sunny when i shot previously. the below shots are cropped and scaled. no other pp. i still have a ways to go. i still have a lot of shots that focus on the background. i know manual focus would help with that. but, i wonder how difficult it would be for me to get used to mf. any advice would be helpful. thanks for looking.

#1

Great action shots.

You need quick autofocusing, not manual focus for sports shooting. Make sure you have your camera set to center point focus and AI servo with burst mode enabled. I'm not really an advocate of indiscriminate use of burst mode, but sometimes it comes in handy. The missed focus is likely just due to the need for more practice. You'll get it in time, especially now that you have a better tool to capture images. Congrats on the new camera purchase!

thanks for looking and commenting!

liza, i do enjoy the new camera! i shot mostly in TV mode. however, i did give sports mode a go. holy sssnikes! 5fps is no joke! the shots were NOT in focus though. i will try center point focus and AI servo. and, of course, practice. i've been out 4 weeks in a row. i think i'm only going to have 1 or 2 more opportunities before this league is over.

Use manual exposure for sports shots, with the shutter set at 1/500 or higher (1/2000 for baseball & softball), aperture wide open, and ISO as low as you can manage with the lighting conditions. Enable the histogram on the view screen and check exposure periodically. That should help.

thanks again liza. i have played a bit with the shutter speed. most of the time i'm shooting at 1/800 or 1/1000. however, yesterday, i shot mostly at 1/1600. that seemed to work better.

i've also started looking at the histogram. all i've managed there is to look for some semblance of a bell curve.

It doesn't have to be a perfect bell curve. In fact, I like to expose a little to the right. Check this out:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial​s/expose-right.shtml

great shots .. got linked over from another thread.. keep on shooting..
curtis

liza wrote:
It doesn't have to be a perfect bell curve. In fact, I like to expose a little to the right. Check this out:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial​s/expose-right.shtml

thanks for the link. more proof i've got a bit to learn.

thanks okiebass101.