Daughters soccer game

[CMfromIL]

New to sports pictures (photography in general), but decided to try a few shots on Saturday during my daughters youth league. You know...before my professional debut.

She was anticipating the ball a bit too much I think:

For some reason I enjoy this picture:

Our goalie during a quiet moment. Looking now, I wished I had a bit more of the net in it.

Last one

 

[sierramister]

They all could use some cropping. And you might want to consider watching the sun as you shoot in broad-daylight, because the faces seem underexposed.

 

[Big Mike]

Tough shooting situation. Harsh light, fast action and far away.

Even shooting at 300mm, it feels like you're too far away in most of these shots. Don't be afraid to crop them to get rid of the dead space around your subject.

The 'worst' thing I'm seeing, is that the backgrounds are distracting. Again, it's a tough situation because of the park/fields around your field, but look at your shot of the goalie...that one has a background that is more out of focus than the rest. That is because that is the only shot (of this group) that you shot with your maximum aperture of F5.6. Using a larger aperture (lower F number) will give you a shallower depth of field (DOF), which helps to isolate your subject from the background...making the background less distracting.
Also, using a larger aperture gives you a faster shutter speed, which is good for stopping the action.

In your situation, rather than using shutter priority, I would use aperture priority and set it to the largest aperture (or very close to it). So F5.6 to F8.
The camera would then give you the appropriate shutter speed for your exposure.

Also, you have your exposure compensation set to a negative value in all these photo. And all of them look a bit underexposed. It's a tough situation because of the direct sunlight, but I think that more exposure would be helpful in most of the photos.

I like the last photo best. This one really shows the action, it has the ball right there and we can see the expression on their faces. It's too wide, so I'd suggest cropping much closer, and you'll have a great shot to print.

 

[CMfromIL]

Thanks Big Mike! I'm struggling with the whole aperture thing really. 99% of it has to do with total inexperience with photography. I'll try some different shots with a lower Fstop.

I imagine it's going to take a few more shots (or 1000's) to get 'good'.

 

[CMfromIL]

I cropped the last picture, is this more what you were thinking?

 

[sierramister]

Tough shooting situation. Harsh light, fast action and far away.

Even shooting at 300mm, it feels like you're too far away in most of these shots. Don't be afraid to crop them to get rid of the dead space around your subject.

The 'worst' thing I'm seeing, is that the backgrounds are distracting. Again, it's a tough situation because of the park/fields around your field, but look at your shot of the goalie...that one has a background that is more out of focus than the rest. That is because that is the only shot (of this group) that you shot with your maximum aperture of F5.6. Using a larger aperture (lower F number) will give you a shallower depth of field (DOF), which helps to isolate your subject from the background...making the background less distracting.
Also, using a larger aperture gives you a faster shutter speed, which is good for stopping the action.

In your situation, rather than using shutter priority, I would use aperture priority and set it to the largest aperture (or very close to it). So F5.6 to F8.
The camera would then give you the appropriate shutter speed for your exposure.

Also, you have your exposure compensation set to a negative value in all these photo. And all of them look a bit underexposed. It's a tough situation because of the direct sunlight, but I think that more exposure would be helpful in most of the photos.

I like the last photo best. This one really shows the action, it has the ball right there and we can see the expression on their faces. It's too wide, so I'd suggest cropping much closer, and you'll have a great shot to print.

All the things I wanted to say but didn't have the time! But to touch on one of Big Mike's points, when you are in aperture priority, you still need to watch your shutter speed. For soccer, you really need to it be faster than 1/1000s. So check every few photos to make sure this is the case. If it isn't, you either need to increase your aperture or your ISO.