Paintball Photography, Tips for Improvement

[mtaylor]

So, one of my hobbies is taking in game paintball photos. Let me know what you think of these, and what I could do better. While it's hard to think about photographic technique while being shot at, I try.

On a side note, no matter what I set the filesize to, photobucket insists on shrinking my pictures down to nothing. That's fairly irritating.

 

[tirediron]

Technically these images are adequate; they'd be improved in some cases with a fil flash, esp, #s 1 & 2. What strikes me most about the majority of them (1, 2, 3, 4, 6) however is that they look like nothing so much as paintball mugshots. That is a close up of the head and shoulders of the person; there's no sense of where they are or really what they're doing.

In 5 and 7 you've opened up a little bit, but still don't really see much. You're using an appropriate versatile lens, but sticking to close to the narrow end. Open up more. A LOT more. Remember, you can always crop in post.

With respect to the question of what you could do to improve, my first suggestion is pick one or the other; that is, either play paintball, or shoot paintball. You can bet that centre-spread shot in SI of Beckham kicking the winning goal wasn't shot by another player. There's a reason for that. If you want really good captures here, you're going to have to take yourself out of the game, tell all the players you're neutral and concentrate on getting the shots.

If you look at 1,2 and 3, you'll see that you've cropped the gun, and the limbs; try to at least get a complete bust shot, and go for a head on, or at most 3/4 profile. People's backs and sides aren't especially interesting.

Just my $00.02 worth - your milage may vary.

~John

 

[chrisburke]

I do a lot of paintball pics I would NEVER take pics while playing your just asking for a broken camera I go out with a red jersey on this way I don't get shot at also a tip... Get a bigger lens (zoom) that way you don't have to be beside the player to take the pic, because this gives away their position and can really piss them off

 

[mtaylor]

Thanks for the advice tirediron, I'll try to keep that in mind.

I'm not playing and taking shots at the same time, and I have a nice bright vest. It helps to look at the field beforehand to try to figure out shooting lanes and such, but I still sometimes have to dive for cover. I'm not entirely sure how I would play carrying a DSLR.

I'm using a Pentax istD and a Tamron 28-300 lens.

 

[Photog]

I would try getting in behind the players, and get some interesting background to your shot.

 

[Noob7_0]

As for composition, I would suggest following a front man on the tape, specifically the aggressive ones so you can get a shot of a few “bunkers”. Try and get some shots with some paint in the air too. As mentioned over the shoulder shots are always cool, getting a player eye view.

 

[mtaylor]

Here's one from today. The weather kind of sucked.