Volleyball Team Photo

Cool shot.

Took some of your advice and applied it to my shooting last weekend. I think it was my best effort so far.

Jon

mattograph wrote in post #8860454
Thanks for taking this in the manner in which it was meant. Its a great photo.

I appreciate someone taking time to point out the negatives. While it is always nice getting positive comments, the "what needs improved" comments are far more helpful. Hopefully the overall dialog is also helpful to others. Having lots of gear is helpful but lots of things that make a really good photo like positioning and balance have nothing to do with gear and IMO is the hardest part of it.

I will definitely use the "NCAA database" comment. That is excellent.

Dan-o wrote in post #8861328
I think you did well over all also Kevin and won't re-hash what has been said. I know how difficult these are and the million things that you have to look for before snapping the photos. Not to mention these type of shots are hell on the kids that just want to get the hell out of there and play some VB.

Thanks Danny. Yeah, this group has a couple that you almost have to drag out to the floor for photos.

Harleypugs wrote in post #8861444
Cool shot.

Took some of your advice and applied it to my shooting last weekend. I think it was my best effort so far.

Jon

Thanks Jon. I must have missed your posts. I am going to go search for them now.

looks amazing!

Wow! Wish I had a team photo like that from high school. Great work!

chris2683 wrote in post #8867622
Wow! Wish I had a team photo like that from high school. Great work!

Great point. These girls will really appreciate the effort in this photo later, if not already today.

Amazing shot K - WOW

Television wrote in post #8862461
looks amazing!

chris2683 wrote in post #8867622
Wow! Wish I had a team photo like that from high school. Great work!

JustinL wrote in post #8876109
Amazing shot K - WOW

Thanks everyone.

mattograph wrote in post #8869287
Great point. These girls will really appreciate the effort in this photo later, if not already today.

They all loved it. I cropped it tight at the top and bottom and made a pano print for the coach. Those 5D MkII files make awesome big prints. I think almost all of the girls are ordering prints as well.

I think this is a great shot

I like the shot Kevin,.. and I really like all the feedback and education. Threads like this are the ones that will make us all better photographers.

6 lights?
Geez.

If you want to show something black (like a net) youre not going to do it by lighting it. You can only normally see the net because of an ABSENCE of light. Its true when youre using your naked eye and its true with youre using off-camera light. If you threw a ton of light on the net (especially parallel), it will never matter because the background behind the net is dark.

If you think about it, it makes sense.

Additionally, you should remember that black doesnt reflect light. It absorbs it. When you 'see' black, youre not actually 'seeing' light. Youre actually 'seeing' the ABSENCE of the light. This being the case, the only way for you to make the net visible is to have it block light from a relatively illuminated source. However, in this case, to do that would mean lighting the back wall and I think would detract from the picture more than add to the picture.

Additionally, if the bleachers were pretty uniform, you could have tried using a CPL to kill the glare.

AdamLewis wrote in post #8881940
6 lights?
Geez.

If you want to show something black (like a net) youre not going to do it by lighting it. You can only normally see the net because of an ABSENCE of light. Its true when youre using your naked eye and its true with youre using off-camera light. If you threw a ton of light on the net (especially parallel), it will never matter because the background behind the net is dark.

If you think about it, it makes sense.

Additionally, you should remember that black doesnt reflect light. It absorbs it. When you 'see' black, youre not actually 'seeing' light. Youre actually 'seeing' the ABSENCE of the light. This being the case, the only way for you to make the net visible is to have it block light from a relatively illuminated source. However, in this case, to do that would mean lighting the back wall and I think would detract from the picture more than add to the picture.

Additionally, if the bleachers were pretty uniform, you could have tried using a CPL to kill the glare.

That all makes sense if I wanted to make the net look black, which I didn't. I wanted it to be anything but black so it would stand out like the white bands.

The net, while black, also has a very shiny surface because it is made of nylon. My attempt was to create a specular highlight off the shiny material the net is made of, like you will notice on the left side of the net in the photo. Since I was trying to create a specular highlight, your point about more light not mattering because of the dark background is completely backwards. The only way this would have worked is with more light to really accentuate the specular highlight or to just totally overexpose the black net against a background that was as close to total black as possible. Basically, the same principle that will make even black velvet look white if you shoot it 4 stops overexposed.

As I mentioned earlier this did not work like I hoped and like I also mentioned earlier, did not have a lot of time to mess with making a ton of adjustments and add a bunch of gobos to make it work. Since most of the net ended up blocked by the kids, I really didn't care. Since I didn't care about the net any longer, in hindsight, I should have just turned off the speedlights because their spill is what made my background brighter than I wanted anyway.

I am not sure what a CPL is but am curious as I would love to have a solution for those nasty bleachers for future needs. The bleachers are like what is shown in the background of this image, only fully collapsed instead of only seven rows collapsed like shown and are painted with about as glossy a paint as I think they could find.

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liam5100 wrote in post #8881521
I like the shot Kevin,.. and I really like all the feedback and education. Threads like this are the ones that will make us all better photographers.

Thanks Bill.

CPL == Circular Polarizing Filter. It eliminates glare coming into the lens from certain angles, sorta like polarizing sunglasses. It rotates, so you can dial in the effect to some degree. Used by landscape photographers to eliminate glare in water and from vegetation and such. In some instances, add an insane amount of punch. Could work in this application, but will also eat a stop to a stop and a half of light.

On another note, black absorbs light, but since true black does not normally exist in our day to day world, black is indeed reflective, to a degree. Anyone who has ever take a picture of their nice black canon camera knows this. iPhones are black, yet the are probably photographed as much as the Kardasian sisters. With regards to your shot, the PV coating used on most volleyball nets is indeed quite reflective. It won't necessarily show up as a uniform black, but it can be lit. (Sorry, BK, I wrote this BEFORE I read your response -- but glad to see we were on the same page. I got where you were going!)

Nice shot.

I have no experience in doing something like this but some things that I think can help:

1. Shoot from little higher position.
2. Longer lens if you have the space
3. Get them positioned little tighter like mentioned
4. Need back ground light
5. Keep lighting simple, two 60" umbrellas higher up just left right of camera position should have been enough. I mean real close to camera, not at 45 deg angle. Keep them pointed straight so light on subject faces is feathered.

For some reason I read the title as "dream" instead of "team" and thought it was going to be about butts.