Womens water polo

A couple of shots that I took at a practice scrimmage this weekend. Next weekend, I might have the opportunity to take pictures at a nationals tournament.

Please C and C and help me prepare for the real thing.

First one does nothing for me IMHO, but the second one does!

I like the second one as well

First one has no faces, or the net. Really not much going on.
Two faces, the full ball and some action in the second. Much better.

corythosaurus wrote in post #5644659
First one does nothing for me IMHO, but the second one does!

Tigershark wrote in post #5644680
I like the second one as well

Darsk47 wrote in post #5645823
First one has no faces, or the net. Really not much going on.
Two faces, the full ball and some action in the second. Much better.

Thanks for your input. Clearly the second photo is a standard action shot. I am sort of disappointed that the first one doesn't do it for you.

Anybody with waterpolo photography experience? I took these in Av mode center weighting. From other threads I am beginning to think I will be better off presetting exposure and working in manual mode with a high shutter speed. Any suggestions?

I can't even see the horses beneath them

No but I do a lot of swimming. FWIW - I prefer spot metering, and usually set camera manually after starting out with a few Av shots and work towards something I like using the histogram.
Obviously as you get to higher shutters speeds, you'll freeze more water droplets. Preference thing as many like the motion conveyed when the water isn't stopped cold.

Looks like these are outside - lots of latitude to play around with many settings. It'll be a great deal easier then shooting in some of the dimly lit natatoriums out there.

drisley wrote in post #5647630
I can't even see the horses beneath them

I cant believe how silly that is. Horses will drown playing water polo. This was discovered after the first few games. Do you have any idea how difficult it is dragging so many dead horses out of a swimming pool?

Instead of horses, the players ride alligators. That is why water polo is such a vicious sport.

Darsk47 wrote in post #5653211
No but I do a lot of swimming. FWIW - I prefer spot metering, and usually set camera manually after starting out with a few Av shots and work towards something I like using the histogram.
Obviously as you get to higher shutters speeds, you'll freeze more water droplets. Preference thing as many like the motion conveyed when the water isn't stopped cold.

Looks like these are outside - lots of latitude to play around with many settings. It'll be a great deal easier then shooting in some of the dimly lit natatoriums out there.

Thanks for the input. I cant imagine water polo played indoors in sunny California. My concern with the automatic metering is the transition between shade and sun and sharp shadow lines, inadvertently blowing out the bright part. The pictures I posted here were done in Av mode and spot metering, which is my normal mode of operations. This weekend I will be shooting a real meet, and I will experiment with manual mode. The shutter speed setting I can experiment with to see which gives the better feel. Since I will be using a long focal length, I will want high speeds anyway to eliminate vibration blur, so I cannot see me dropping much below 1/500th anyway.

Bignerd wrote in post #5673050
This weekend I will be shooting a real meet, and I will experiment with manual mode.

Good luck with it - post up some samples when you've got them. Cheers!