advice please

Hi

I shoot soccer(football) and I seem to be consistently getting the ball pin sharp but chest/face which is the focus spot is just off is this back focusing ? if so how do i check for it ? How can I determine whether this is a problem with the body lens or just me.

Any advice ?

Smaller aperture for greater depth of field?

and some sample pics would really help!

hi

doing everything right i think sadly can't post images due to fa rules any ideas just for testing my lense calibration ?

If you`re at FA games you must either have your own license through getting images used in the press or you`re working for a club or an agency. Whatever, your pics would be used for publication and to have got anywhere near a pro game your portfolio images must have been acceptable?
I wouldn`t have thought an agency or club wouldn`t have taken you on if your images were soft and a paper certainly wouldn`t have printed soft images??!
So, I assume once upon a time your images were sharp?
I would say you need your kit calibrated.
Posting FA images on here not a good idea!

any idea how to check calibration myself?

I've seen some of slimsurf's work and it is rather good.

To answer your question, its tricky with no example pics (you've got my email address so feel free to send some across) however if the ball is in focus and the player isn't then that isn't back-focussing. Quite the opposite in fact.

I assume you're using 1d bodies? Are you using a different focus point for when the camera is in portrait orientation? This is something i've been experimenting with during the rugby i've been covering.....takes some getting used to, but with custom function tweaking and focus point setting then you're away.

In terms of checking focusing, i checked mine a while back by simply using one shot focussing and focussing on something at the closest focussing distance. On a 300 2.8 that gives about 3cm depth of field to play with and quickly shows whether the focussing is accurate.

Not a scientific way, but worked for me as peace of mind!

Hope this helps a little,

Paul