Keeping the horizon straight.

Something I struggle with when shooting sport is keeping the horizon correct. I get caught up trying to capture the action a most of my shots have to be corrected.

The strange thing is that The are ALL approx the same amount out. Not exactly though so I could not put it into an action.

Its not much fun when you spend a day at an event and then have to straighten the keepers, HOURS of work.

Hints tips and suggestions welcomed

Monopod?

TheHoff wrote in post #8811726
Monopod?

Sometimes I get my horizons a bit off even with a monopod, especially if the action is almost directly across the pitch from me, so i've turned through 90deg on my stool.

Unfortunately, it's just something that has to be done! At least you're straightening them...i see lots of photographers selling work that looks awful because it's not straight.

just crop them suckers and make em straight

Personally, the horizons got better with practice. Sitting out back on the deck at home, I'd practice shooting trees in portrait orientation to get better at keeping the camera level during shooting.

My initial problem was sqeezing the shutter actuator button too hard. All my horizons tilted down from left (higher) to right. Obviously, my shutter technique was pulling the camera body from level.

dave

Same here. Most of my sports shots require a 2 degree counter-clockwise rotation to get the horizon right.

Thanks for the ideas.

Yes I suppose practice will help. I do use a monopod most of the time,

I think this happens to most of us.

I find when I am "off" its typically by the same amount for several images. I use the sync feature in Lightroom and fix the entire group in one click.

That's why I like having the focusing screen. I can line up the horizontal lines as best I can. I have to straighten them sometimes, but not too bad.

eigga wrote in post #8817681
I find when I am "off" its typically by the same amount for several images. I use the sync feature in Lightroom and fix the entire group in one click.

Thanks -- this is the exact type of response I was looking for.

I crop in ACR so when I've got the crop selected I just add a step to straighten the image if it's needed. It maintains my crop and ratio.