First Sports Motion Pictures

First off, I'm a total newbie to this, I originally purchased my Cam for work purposes, but I could not resist taking some action shots of my friends playing paintball.
Its a rebel XTI with a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 ld xr lens
The only options I put where on the sports/motion settings. None of the pictures where edited, just a few were cropped because the shield/cover I was using to protect my mask came into the picture.
I need some guidance with the settings I guess, as most of them came out a bit blurry, gotta start somewhere right....

Let me know how I could improve them.

Here is the link to my album
http://picasaweb.googl​e.com …Pball?authkey=j​rKFbQsxFLU

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

I think you might want to invest in a lens with some additional length that will allow you to get into the action more

Agree with above, and I think most of them could have been improved by a higher shutter speed. I never really use the action setting, just crank the shutter speed to stop motion and adjust elsewhere (iso, f-stop) until the meter reads correctly. I don't see any EXIF data attached so I can't really tell what they were shot at though.

btw - I like this shot very much... I'd recrop it, however.

http://picasaweb.googl​e.com …sxFLU#526319448​5236582242

0ozma wrote in post #6596995
Agree with above, and I think most of them could have been improved by a higher shutter speed. I never really use the action setting, just crank the shutter speed to stop motion and adjust elsewhere (iso, f-stop) until the meter reads correctly. I don't see any EXIF data attached so I can't really tell what they were shot at though.

can you tell me how to do this?

Put the camera dial on Tv and select a shutter speed like 1/500 or so. Your Tamron is a great lens.

did you use any type of shield to protect your camera? i would love to photograph paintball but i dont want my camera to be hit by a stray ball?

Before you start taking all these sage advice.
Look at your photo info: learn how to break down your mistakes.
400 iso = 1/25 of a second at 2.8.

Break that down: At f/2.8...
400 iso = 1/25
800 iso = 1/50
1600 iso = 1/100
3200 iso = 1/200
6400 iso = 1/400

Not sure how well your XTi will do at 6400 iso if it can do it naturally. Those underexposed shots will give you a lot of banding.

Bring a flash with you if you can, it syncs at 1/200, and you can shoot at 400 iso. If you shoot in manual, you can cheat a little and probably get away with 1/300 of a sec with little shutter shadow at the bottom of your screen. Not as noticable when you shoot around 50mm, instead of 17mm, it'll also fix the issue with subjects being so small.
Speaking of 50mm, think about using a 50mm 1/8 if you want to shoot with out flash (they are relatively cheap) so instead of that 6400 iso you can probably dial in a noisy 3200 iso if you want to shoot at 1/400.
But looking at most of your shots 1/200 at f1/8 with 1600 iso will cover a lot of your stuff. If your subjects move, learn to pan with them or Get a flash.

I would go much tighter on the crop. Shooter is lost in the shot. On the shutter speed, you all know what shutter speed you need to capture a good paint ball splat?

Here is round #2, I opened it up 2.8 and put iso 1600 and put the white balance to flourecent lights, pictures came out wayyy better!
what do you guys think?

http://picasaweb.googl​e.com/tomaspossenti

Nicer, better crops for the most part too. Some of those wides are nice for overviews but I do prefer the tighter crops. It looks like you're shooting from a standing position, you might want to try some lower angles.
At 1/100 sec you notice that your exposures are nice but you're still struggling with motion?
At 1/200 sec, it's a tad underexposed and at 1/400 ( your wides) the subjects are almost vignettes.
Remember the meter gets fooled by the back lighting and over head lights. If you want more consistent exposures, you might want to consider shooting in Manual mode. You have to decide what to sacrifice, slight under exposures, better motion control or good exposure with motion blur.
You're getting the hang of it, nice improvements.

dkord wrote in post #6612932
Nicer, better crops for the most part too. Some of those wides are nice for overviews but I do prefer the tighter crops. It looks like you're shooting from a standing position, you might want to try some lower angles.
At 1/100 sec you notice that your exposures are nice but you're still struggling with motion?
At 1/200 sec, it's a tad underexposed and at 1/400 ( your wides) the subjects are almost vignettes.
Remember the meter gets fooled by the back lighting and over head lights. If you want more consistent exposures, you might want to consider shooting in Manual mode. You have to decide what to sacrifice, slight under exposures, better motion control or good exposure with motion blur.
You're getting the hang of it, nice improvements.

thanks, what settings should I use in manual mode?
Can you tell me what to change?

Alky - I am not sure if anyone can simply tell you what settings to use. Each environment will require a different group of settings. Once you give it some practice, you'll start to develop a sense of what you'll need. When started, I read up on all sorts of articles and I was experimenting simply by photographing people walking and kids playing. However, my first shots of our martial arts classes were particularly disappointing. Despite what I knew technically, it was practice that allowed me to be able to improve.

have you tried laying on the ground ? when shooting paintball its best to lay and make sure you know exactly where everybody is.. that way you can get the best angles without getting a stray ball. use a very thick filter for it will protect your glass in your lens (70 mm + ) also, invest in a lens with a greater focal length. it will help alot. and if your worring about getting oily paint all over your camera ive found that you can take a sock and cut a hole in one end and it will cover your entire camera very well.. and your screen will still be visible.. you just have to memorize where all your buttons are.

logan

alkyoneus wrote in post #6613003
thanks, what settings should I use in manual mode?
Can you tell me what to change?

Look at your photo's and the exposure info.
I already discuss your shutter speed settings: shooting at f/2.8 and 1600 ISO if those two variables are not changed, your photos should give you an idea what the shutter speed should be set to. Higher the shutter speed gives the best chance of stopping action, too high and you're too underexposed.

Fortunately for you the lighting doesn't change unless you go wide or shoot against those windows. But those two variables don't actually affect true exposure on your subjects but it can fool your meter, that's the key to shooting manual: you're not dependent on the meter so your exposure will not fluctuate.

If you can try shooting RAW, you'll loose some buffer and the ability to shoot a long burst, but it least you shoot a bit underexposed.
I hope those hints will help you but I'm not going to tell you your setting, it's about figuring out your mistakes and improving as a photographer.
I know you'll figure it out.