First Set of Paintball Shots - Through the Net and not an optimal Setup..

SnapShot Photos wrote in post #11026156
I did a different style of PP in lightroom, I'm liking the desaturated sort of high detail style that they have going on now, updated first post.

I could quote all of your posts but this was the last...


lol i've been through this before with paintball shots and i've stopped taking them.

Everyone knows what a perfect photo is supposed to look like - they don't care what they're looking at - #1.

The close up shot of the player shooting at someone is played out now...that pose/shot has been around since the 90's and no one cares about it unless they're the person in the picture - #2.

Because the only shots you ever see are of the break out, running and shooting, diving, getting shot, and of course the trendy shot of the person shooting, people who look at the pictures that have never played paintball before do not know WTF is going on. I've showed people dozens of cool paintball photo's and they say "i don't know if thats a cool shot because i dont know what he's doing or why he's doing it" so, try to take pictures from behind the player so you can see what they're shooting at and it helps evoke more questions, emotions, and interest. - #3.

finally, i've tried taking those types of pictures and everyone I showed them to loved them especially the "before getting bunkered" shots. I tried contacting magazines and they ignored me. Have you had a chance to look at the latest issue of FaceFull? It sucks ass.

Just thought i'd give you my advice about paintball photography.

yeah when I'm allowed inside the net I'll totally get into the action, I used to do some video stuff so I know about angles, but I was pretty limited to the sidelines for this. Thanks.

another pb photographer said he liked this one so I added it to the first post:

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

SnapShot Photos wrote in post #11022634
like I said, it's THROUGH THE NET....it's very hard to filter out a net.

i'm saying your shutter speed wasn't fast enough.

you seem very defensive over your pictures, however you posted in the CC section of the boards. perhaps if you're not interested in experienced photographers opinions, you should post specifically in the sports section where you can get the accolades you seem to be looking for.

tell me where I'm defensive?? I said in the first post I couldn't do anything about angles and that's all I'm getting.

I think you could have got better results from canon 30d and 70-200mm

this was shot with a nikon and a kit lens as stated in the first post..

SnapShot Photos wrote in post #11027390
tell me where I'm defensive?? I said in the first post I couldn't do anything about angles and that's all I'm getting.

you said you didnt care about DOF and you like the saturation they're at. you seem to be getting annoyed people are saying they're OOF or blurry.

The only thing I'm getting annoyed at is people who aren't reading the thread and are saying the same thing over and over. People have said that they look plenty sharp, I'd love to know which one you think is OOF.

Read #1 of my last post again.

is there really such thing as a perfect photo though? I thought this was considered an art form.

Not to bust your balls (pun intended) but art is intimate or personal (refer to quote).

If you want your photo's to be published you have to take the shots the editors want, which in paintball is the boring, trendy, simplistic same shots over and over again, have you seen the last facefull??
But, the best part about artful photo's is that you can illustrate with your saturation levels & other settings the way you see the game. My style is to get behind the player or find 2 players shooting at each other and capture the paint in the air, not everyone likes it - but thats how i see paintball and it excites me. Your way is vibrant in your face powerful photo's. Paintball players will like your photo's because it's paintball. photographers will chew you up because its photography. they know what perfect pictures look like and yes there is a proper way to take a photo - maybe not perfect because you can take the same photo so many different ways, but there is a right and wrong way to take one, i just got a long lesson on that myself. I think when a photographer looks at a paintball photo it falls under the portrait category in their head/eyes so everything needs to be properly exposed and in paintball that's 1/500 pictures. So it's art and personal like i said. Have you posted your photo's on PBN? When I posted mine on here I was chewwed just like you. I put them on MCB and they went nuts saying how they've never seen pictures like them. There's #4 for ya - know your market/audience.

and don't go changin.

SnapShot Photos wrote in post #11025865
see, I'm a huge fan of vibrant, high contrast pictures..maybe it's because I'm new to photography but they seem a lot more powerful to me, if no one else sees it like I do I'll have to adjust my tastes

Here's a handful of mine... Taken with 18-55mm

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

There's a number of problems shooting paintball versus other sports, and some of them are simply unavoidable. There's rarely any focal point of action, ie. a "ball" to follow. The speedball formats are almost inevitably an elimination game, and the flag is all but vestigial. Players are separated by many feet and obscured by props, so perspective is often limited in terms of who's shooting who or whats going on. There's also an expressive barrier, if you will, due to full face masks.

Also, there's paintballs being shot at you and the camera.

Paintball has a lot of samey shots, but then so do most sports. How many "split-second before the lay-up" shots have you seen in basketball? How many "just caught the pass" football shots? How about panning motorcycle shots? The real problem is paintball has a small following, and few are familiar with its inner workings, especially the tournament formats. To most, paintball is just that one time you and your friends shot at each other in the backyard. There is no tournament paintball, and photographers can't fix this.

I try to approach paintball as I suppose other extreme sports would be approached - Trying to capture movement, action. There's not a whole hell of a lot to work with beyond that. I would think a player shooting, being shot, or running/dodging/diving for cover would be fairly simple concepts to pick up on, even lacking the context of the opposing player. But certainly the rare shot when you can get that perspective is worth pursuing.

It's funny Tom mentions shooting from behind a player, because I distinctly remember a group of paintball photographers ridiculing that approach. I happen to think that can work, but the application has to be specific and it usually involves getting shot to ribbons. Few new photographers seem to get it, though, and simply get a shot of someone's back as they're just sitting behind their bunker.

And a side note about processing - I don't know why, but under-saturation, tone curving so the sky is darker than the ground, fake vignetting and excessive local contrast (haloing) are popping up a lot lately, and it smacks of "I just discovered Flickr" a little too much for me.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of vignetting, I did it in the one where the player was calling himself out because I felt like it gave it the right feel, but I PP pretty selectively.

I've been doing photoshop for years, photography, not so much except for 2 semesters of highschool level classes. I know people at Propaintball, and facefull, so getting a media pass/published for shoots won't be too hard once I'm at that level, but right now I'm just getting used to the gear. I like to shoot in a way that people who know paintball would appreciate, but I'm trying to think of my own unique style, seems like everything is really overused right now, it's too bad I can't get off the sidelines and into a bunker, shots from the center 50 would be amazing.

Right now I'm doing a website partnership with Tim Barnard and some other people in FPS photography. He's helping me out quite a bit and I saw on here that both of you have helped him out in the past.

@TomCross- those photos are a great example of what I said in my earlier posts. Good shots, I love how you use the 18-55 to its strong suits, and most of all, how you use your eye to give the viewer a good perspective on what the combatants see. There is no such thing as a perfect photo though, but I do agree that you should target a certain market if you want specific results.

@SnapShot, you've been nothing but defensive, and have done little to acknowledge any of the criticism or critique, like when you "couldn't really do **** about DOF." People here are putting in their free time to help you grow as a photographer, but you act like nobody can read, and continue to reiterate points that you made from the first post.

I agree with AmandaMarie, you should have posted these in the Sports section. Why would you post pictures because you "just felt like posting up pics?" Why would you settle for mediocrity? Do you really like any of these images?

Part of growing as an artist, and a photographer, is getting cut down when your work isn't up to par. You have to accept it and move on, or be a stick in the mud, and stay at the same level.

The bottom line is that no editor, art buyer, or client anywhere gives two "****"s about your DOF, whether you're behind the net or not, the only thing that matters is good looking images.