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DPChallenge Forums >> Tips, Tricks, and Q&A >> Help with action shots please?
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Showing posts 26 - 34 of 34, (reverse)
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 03/26/2005 12:35:16 PM · #26
How's this for a HS BB shot? Obviously, at f2.0 I have sacrifaced some in depth of field. I would love to hear your impressions. How's the post processing look? Thanks.


03/26/2005 07:39:07 PM · #27
Bumping to try to get some feedback on this dunk shot.
 03/26/2005 07:55:39 PM · #28
Thats a nice shot coolhar, too bad about the referee though, now that I've shot a game I know what you mean. last night I got ran over sitting on the baseline from the players :) did you know that the human body sweets from physical exertion? hehehe
 03/26/2005 08:07:01 PM · #29
Ok went out and shot another game, my second try. I took the advice from you awesome people and had a great time using my new toy! And coolhar thanks for the baseline tip as that is were I sat and did all my shooting from. All my pictures turned out dark: :( however I feel that I did a much better job this time and feel better about my results. I doubled the amount of what I would consider âkeepersâ. I hoping that I can save some of these with post process to lighten them up? What are your thoughts, are they too dark to even try to save? If you have a moment I would appreciate any comments? Thanks So much Again! Robert

2nd try at a Basketball game
03/26/2005 11:36:08 PM · #30
No, I don't think they are too dark. And I think you are pretty dialed in on the right shutter speed as I see hardly any motion blur. Some have caught really dramatic moments in the game. They can be made to look better with post processing. I took the liberty to rip three of them and did a very rough edit to show you how I would do them. See my edits here:the_Seeker's shots in my workshop As I said these are quick and dirty edits made from downsized files. You'll be able to do better. Mostly I just increased brightness, tweaked color balance and contrast, and sharpened. I also did some rough cloning to remove distractions near the players heads. These are done in my own style and may not please you. You will find what you like best as you gain more experience.

I'm glad you liked shooting from that position. And you don't need me to tell you that there's considerable improvement from your 1st game. Your gym seems to have a pretty fair amount of light but there are some problems. The ceiling lights are real hot spots, and there's a place where the wall is close to one of them making a big bright area just below it. You can crop out some, and clone some away (as I did in 356) but they are a problem to deal with. Move around to try slightly different spots, see if the other end of the court is better. If you were down low when shooting try standing up to see if that will reduce the number of those bright ceiling lights that show up in your backgrounds. Also that gym has a lot of banners and a scoreboard that are showing up in distracting places. Not much you can do about that. However you can make the background a little more blurry by taking shots where the subject you focus on is closer to you and farther away from the background. Another method to separate subject from a distractiong bg is to use flash. It will make your subject stand out and the background will look darker. But the hard part is getting just the right amount. Too much and you'll wind up with what I call "caspers", images where the subject is white as a ghost against a total black bg. Try using your onboard flash for maybe the last quarter at your next game. John's suggestion of -2/3 is a good place to start, and make adjustments as needed. The goal is to light up the subject, especially in shots where he is backlit, enough so detail shows well but not to drown out the ambient light. 309 and 317 are a couple of shots that would benefit with a little more light on the side of the subject closest the camera. Experiment to find the right balance.

You gotta watch out for the players when you're close, but that's part of the deal. By the end of the season I got to where I felt that if I didn't have contact with a player, a ref, or the ball at least once during the game, that meant I wasn't close enough. Once I got clipped at a football game hard enough to leave me limping for a month. But one of the refs helped me to my feet and complimented me because I had hugged my camera to protect it as I was going down, LOL.

Edited: I fixed the link so my edits can now be viewed. Sorry, first time I tried this.

Message edited by author 2005-03-28 12:40:36.
 03/27/2005 06:28:24 AM · #31
Originally posted by coolhar:
How's this for a HS BB shot? Obviously, at f2.0 I have sacrifaced some in depth of field. I would love to hear your impressions. How's the post processing look? Thanks.


Excellent capture, Harvey. Like you say it's a little soft because of aperture, but it's got great background separation and it's a nice clean composition. I can't help thinking I want to see the face, which is obviously just luck of the draw. The colour looks pretty good too it looks fairly natural. I don't know about the new 20D/350D, but the 10D/300D suffer somewhat in harsh lighting conditions with white balance. It's pretty difficult to sort it out, I find, and RAW is far too slow for sports on my camera.

I notice you're using my favourite lens too, the 85mm/1.8. Having just read your comment I see you cropped the image quite a bit. That's what I love about primes (particularly this one) and L-ranges - the ability to crop them heavily because of quality. :D
 03/27/2005 06:47:58 AM · #32
Originally posted by the_Seeker:
Ok went out and shot another game, my second try. I ... had a great time using my new toy!

You're making an excellent job so far, Robert. Indoor sports are VERY hard to shoot, even pros don't find it easy, and it's great you're enjoying the challenge!

Pros
- You've caught the action well and there's a nice feeling for the action
- A lot of the pictures are pretty sharp, which isn't easy!
- I think the pictures are a bit dark. This is a pro because that gave you a slightly shorter shutter on the day, which helped freeze the action, and it's easily correctable in Photoshop
- You've managed to minimize background distractions in most of the shots

Cons
- I do think the pics are too dark, which is an advantage on the day, but I would recommend brightening them up now using Levels. (Even Auto-Levels may do an adequate job.)
- The shots are a bit on the wide side. I quote another sports photographer: "If it ain't tight, it ain't right". Tight shots help in two ways: 1) they reduce background distractions, and 2) they put the action right in your face as large as possible! Cropping your shots might be hard, depending on the lens you've used and how sharp they are full size. I'd definitely give it a go though.

Let me know if you'd like to per-shot comments. Again - excellent job.
 03/28/2005 05:57:25 PM · #33
Originally posted by coolhar:
No, I don't think they are too dark. And I think you are pretty dialed in on the right shutter speed as I see hardly any motion blur. Some have caught really dramatic moments in the game. They can be made to look better with post processing. I took the liberty to rip three of them and did a very rough edit to show you how I would do them. See my edits here:the_Seeker's shots in my workshop As I said these are quick and dirty edits made from downsized files. You'll be able to do better. Mostly I just increased brightness, tweaked color balance and contrast, and sharpened. I also did some rough cloning to remove distractions near the players heads. These are done in my own style and may not please you. You will find what you like best as you gain more experience.

I'm glad you liked shooting from that position. And you don't need me to tell you that there's considerable improvement from your 1st game. Your gym seems to have a pretty fair amount of light but there are some problems. The ceiling lights are real hot spots, and there's a place where the wall is close to one of them making a big bright area just below it. You can crop out some, and clone some away (as I did in 356) but they are a problem to deal with. Move around to try slightly different spots, see if the other end of the court is better. If you were down low when shooting try standing up to see if that will reduce the number of those bright ceiling lights that show up in your backgrounds. Also that gym has a lot of banners and a scoreboard that are showing up in distracting places. Not much you can do about that. However you can make the background a little more blurry by taking shots where the subject you focus on is closer to you and farther away from the background. Another method to separate subject from a distractiong bg is to use flash. It will make your subject stand out and the background will look darker. But the hard part is getting just the right amount. Too much and you'll wind up with what I call "caspers", images where the subject is white as a ghost against a total black bg. Try using your onboard flash for maybe the last quarter at your next game. John's suggestion of -2/3 is a good place to start, and make adjustments as needed. The goal is to light up the subject, especially in shots where he is backlit, enough so detail shows well but not to drown out the ambient light. 309 and 317 are a couple of shots that would benefit with a little more light on the side of the subject closest the camera. Experiment to find the right balance.

You gotta watch out for the players when you're close, but that's part of the deal. By the end of the season I got to where I felt that if I didn't have contact with a player, a ref, or the ball at least once during the game, that meant I wasn't close enough. Once I got clipped at a football game hard enough to leave me limping for a month. But one of the refs helped me to my feet and complimented me because I had hugged my camera to protect it as I was going down, LOL.

Edited: I fixed the link so my edits can now be viewed. Sorry, first time I tried this.


Thanks again for your help! Hummm link still not working for me...
One more thing I would like to share from my experience with the second game. I remember once listening to a friend of mine talk about shooting with a scope and a rifle. Iâm not a hunter so I was just kind of listening in, but he was trying to explain that you shouldnât need to close one eye to look through the scope. He continued to explain that most people have a dominant eye and that with practice one could focus âthroughâ the glass with both eyes open. I remember that I was closing one eye and trying to look AT the EVF during my first attempt. The second game I tried keeping both eyes open, and it took some time, but then bam, I was looking through the lens. From then on I was able to frame better and follow the action better.
I tried some prost processing however I end up with a flatter image. I guess I just need to spend more time trying and learning. Oh and good job on taking the hit and saving your camera.
Robert

03/28/2005 06:07:02 PM · #34
Originally posted by PaulMdx:
Originally posted by the_Seeker:
Ok went out and shot another game, my second try. I ... had a great time using my new toy!

You're making an excellent job so far, Robert. Indoor sports are VERY hard to shoot, even pros don't find it easy, and it's great you're enjoying the challenge!

Pros
- You've caught the action well and there's a nice feeling for the action
- A lot of the pictures are pretty sharp, which isn't easy!
- I think the pictures are a bit dark. This is a pro because that gave you a slightly shorter shutter on the day, which helped freeze the action, and it's easily correctable in Photoshop
- You've managed to minimize background distractions in most of the shots

Cons
- I do think the pics are too dark, which is an advantage on the day, but I would recommend brightening them up now using Levels. (Even Auto-Levels may do an adequate job.)
- The shots are a bit on the wide side. I quote another sports photographer: "If it ain't tight, it ain't right". Tight shots help in two ways: 1) they reduce background distractions, and 2) they put the action right in your face as large as possible! Cropping your shots might be hard, depending on the lens you've used and how sharp they are full size. I'd definitely give it a go though.

Let me know if you'd like to per-shot comments. Again - excellent job.


Thanks for your encouragement PaulMdx I have lots to learn, but with help from the awesome members of DPC like yourself and coolhar has made it an enjoyable experience to say the least! Yes I agree on the shoot should be tight and will crop where I can. I mostly wanted to show what I did and display it strait from the camera, that and oh, Iâm not the best with Photoshop. More stuff to learn :)
Robert
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