High School Volleyball Tourney

[Matty-Bass]

I decided to join the yearbook committee as a photographer so I could force myself to get some practice in and I've already been given the use of the Canon 70-200mm USM IS lens

They asked me to do some of the senior men's volleyball team shots and I was worried at first because it was my second time using the big lens and my first time actually shooting sports with it. I think they turned out ok for a first time. Any suggestions for the future based on these? I picked my four favourites:

1,

2.

3.

4. (More or less a joke, just practicing DOF )

 

[Matty-Bass]

Bear with me for a second, I have to reupload the pictures because I uploaded them too small. :er:

EDIT

Good lord, I did it twice in a row. Oh well, I apologize for the small size, it's very late here in my defence.

 

[Ejazzle]

when im shooting volleyball i usually always try and get the gym floor and their feet. It helps put into perspective the height of the jumps

 

[gsgary]

The 70-200 is a bit long do they have a 50F1.4 you could try

 

[Jeff Canes]

What camera are using? The shutter speed seem a little slow. You may want to try upping both the shutter and ISO. I also think that more practice will help with the framing. Are there any bleachers or a spot you can shot down from in gym? Bit of height would help with #3 so you could see the player face coming up/over of the net

 

[Hooligan Dan]

I shoot high school sports nearly every day and volleyball is by far the hardest. You did pretty well for your first time. I know 30 year vets who still have trouble with volleyball.
Using the long lens is perfect. I use a Nikon 80-200. And you're not gonna stop the action completely inside most high school gyms(they are typically not well lit). It's just not going to happen unless you're shooting a 3200 or higher, and most cameras don't perform well at that high an ISO. The images start looking soft even with the best high ISO bodies like the D3/300. Showing the ground is also not necessary unless you are high up and shooting down on the players so you show the ground beneath them. If you zoom out enough to show the floor when you are on the same level as the players then you are going to lose facial expressions and there will be a lot of dead space in the shot around the player. And my final advice is try to get up high enough so your lens is about halfway up the net to get face through the net. And stand near the center of the end of the court(pretty far back from the court though-don't want to be too close) if you want good net shots. This will get you clear faces and avoid the angled net in the shot. Obviously if you want shots of the players digging down the you'll have to get low to the ground.

And again, great shots for your first go. My first go at it was disastrous and people all over the city got to see it the next morning in the sports section.

Please excuse the quality of the image. It's CMYK which is for the actual printing of the paper. Our website guy seems to be mentally handicapped in some way because no matter how many times we tell him he keeps puting the CMYKs online instead of regular RGB jpegs.

 

[Big Mike]

I think that my brother-in-law was coaching at that tournament.

Certainly a good start, I can imagine that Volleyball is rather hard to shoot.

 

[jwsciontc]

u had a 200mm and thats how far you were? seems like you could have gotten a lot closer

 

[Kegger]

All but the last one were 70mm or 110mm.

Good job with what you had to work with, but you need to work on composition. Practice, practice, practice. These have promise, and keep your hands on that lens and see how much you can use it.

 

[gsgary]

u had a 200mm and thats how far you were? seems like you could have gotten a lot closer

He was only shooting at 70mm check exif