Do you shoot?

I'm with UPChip, murphyc and Pilot. Annoying, though, is the a-hole from Podunk Press insinuating to you doing both is unbecoming for them. Ironically, those folks seem to spend more time shooting the shit with anybody who will listen during the game than paying attention to it.

 

Back in my former SE life, I did both gamers and pics, unless it was tourney time. Then I would enlist Mr. Rosie to shoot. I also had another friend I could count on to shoot football for me (they honestly would work for free admission to the game - and that was a very small paper.)

Now, in my life in news-side, I'm still shooting and writing. We do not have a staff photog, so we all have to "do it all." And now it looks like the higher-ups want to push video again.

I don't mind taking pics, I've balanced the two long enough, forever pretty much. But adding video? Ugh.

 

Adding video sounds simple enough to the upper-ups. The problem is that it's not. It's almost as much a different beast to photography as shooting photos is to writing. As much as us print folks like to bash TV folks, we gotta admit, video is time consuming and a pain in the ass, and most of us don't know where to start.

 

Shooting photos isn't beneath me. It's just not what I signed up for. If I wanted to be a photographer, I would have gone to school for that and applied for jobs as a photographer. To me, it would be no different than being asked to go run the press or handle advertising or circulation (shhhhh, I better not say that to where anyone can hear and get crazy ideas.)

 

What do you (or anyone else with an opinion) think of this top one I took this afternoon? My framing is off, but I think it actually adds to it in this case:



Then this one was another one I liked ... just couldn't find a good crop with the lineman arm and leg in the way.

 

Aww, you're making me blush, JD.

One thought I'd like to share (forgive me if this is over-explained, I'd rather be sure I'm clear than the other way around): One of the things that sets great shots apart from so-so shots is often the background, even moreso than the ability to stop action. Depth of field (this is a term that refers to the amount of the image that is in acceptable focus) is governed in part by your aperture — the more open it is, the less depth of field you have, limiting what's in focus. This helps to isolate your subject against a nice, pleasing out-of-focus background.

Since the widest possible aperture is a function of the lens, those of you with nicer lenses will have an easier time with this. If you don't have a nice lens with a very wide aperture, you will do well to get closer to your subjects, since DoF gets smaller the closer you are to what you're focused on.

In game situations, this means getting as close as possible to the action, but it also means not shooting when the action is across the field, or at the other end of the court. DoF is also impacted by your focal length (the bigness of the lens). So a 200mm lens will have greater DoF than a 300mm lens at the same distance.

You'll also hear this use of shallow DoF referred to as "selective focus," and next to the rule of thirds, it's probably the most direct avenue to an immediately noticeable improvement in your photos.

With regard to backgrounds, if you can't eliminate distracting backgrounds via shallow DoF, change your vantage point. Get lower and make a clean sky your background, or get higher and make the dirt or grass your background.

Take a look at the work of Mark Rebilas. He's a tremendously talented sports photographer who takes great care to have clean backgrounds. You may find his blog very instructive. http://markjrebilas.com/blog/

Some particularly good posts:
Basketball: http://markjrebilas.com/blog/?p=10889
Basketball: http://markjrebilas.com/blog/?p=8529
Baseball: http://markjrebilas.com/blog/?p=10866
Celebration: http://markjrebilas.com/blog/?p=1835
Football: http://markjrebilas.com/blog/?p=11029

I've had some questions via PM, and I promise to get to them as quickly as possible. I hope this is helpful, and please keep asking.

 

The action is good. Kudos for that. So is the exposure, which can be a challenge in situations like this. I'd encourage you to get even lower than you are here. It'll heighten the drama of the image (for one, it will make the subjects seem like they are jumping even higher). It will also fill the space better with the subjects, instead of leaving so much sky in the image.

Off to dinner, but when I get back I'll comment on the second.

 

I appreciate the insight!

 

My apologies for not getting to this more quickly.

Both of these are a little overexposed, though this one is noticeably moreso. This is due in large part to what had to be a very challenging range of contrast. I'm guessing mid-day sun, really deep shadows and not much directionality. Actually, the lack of direction to the light is evident by the shadows directly beneath the players. Probably the least useful light you'll have to work with, and I think any faults in the exposure are probably the best compromise you could make for the situation. No complaints there.

My chief complaint, such as it is, is that the action doesn't fill the space well (though it fills it better than the first image). There is simply too much background, and too much of that in focus. That fence back there is awful. Again, not your fault, as it's in part a function of the lens you're using. As I noted in my far-too-long post about DoF earlier in the thread, dealing with your backgrounds is critical. This is a situation that would have benefited dramatically from you being either lower or higher and cleaning up that background.

The positives: I like the moment you grabbed here. Love the way you can see the defender's eyes on the running back. The image is in good focus, which can be a challenge for some people shooting action. Overall, I consider this a very solid effort, and if you can get this sort of image consistently, it's time for you to push yourself to the next level.

On a sidenote, just for folks to think about while they are shooting: It is easier to stop action of people moving toward your camera or away from it, but it is easier to keep something in focus when they are moving across the plane of the camera.

When I get a chance, I'll make some notes about the difference between blur and lack of focus, and how we can use one (blur) to our advantage. Focus v. out of focus is also useful, but was largely the subject of the DoF post.

Post some more!

 

Got great news today - cameras and lenses we were having cleaned and fix are finished. I'll get to shoot next week for the first time since December.

 

Post some pictures!

 

So glad I found this thread. I'm posting a few photos but be forewarned, my shots are shit.

My side gig has started requiring photos. I have an old Nikon D100 that I bought years ago when the college paper was unloading them. I have a lens I bought recently for basketball, I want to say it's a 150mm F1.8. (Got it based on a suggestion from Pilot on another thread. Thanks, Pilot!) I'm in market for another lens for baseball/soccer, although one of the guys at the camera shop recently was trying to tell me a new $500 Nikon body would make things much easier for me. (No, I didn't get a model number from him.)

But I'm the type of guy who can't learn by sitting down and opening an instruction manual. I need someone to show me stuff. So far, all the photography classes this here way have conflicted with my work schedule. I'm hoping that changes soon. (As an aside: I hate this about our business, that we'll just throw someone overboard and say "do this!" without any appreciable training -- and I feel this happens in journalism moreso than most other fields.)

OK, sorry for the venting. Here are some pics. Again, I know they're shit.