New to football photography - looking for C&C

[R3d]

On the sidelines for the school newspaper this weekend. The past two weeks have been my first foray into sports photography and it's been interesting so far. I know these are a lot to critique individually, but some feedback on the set as a whole would be appreciated. Whole set here: Austin College Football - a set on Flickr


DSC08697 by R3d Baron, on Flickr


DSC08609 by R3d Baron, on Flickr


DSC08311 by R3d Baron, on Flickr


DSC08250 by R3d Baron, on Flickr


DSC08174 by R3d Baron, on Flickr


DSC08070 by R3d Baron, on Flickr


DSC08127 by R3d Baron, on Flickr


DSC08036 by R3d Baron, on Flickr

 

[Tony S]

Shoot or crop tighter to clean them up some. For day games shooting RAW really helps because then you can open up the shadows on the faces with the fill light tool. Players want their faces seen.


Dang it, I haven't loaded an exif reader onto the new puter yet. Grrrr.

 

[MLeeK]

Your contrast is pushed so high that you have lost details in the faces you could have captured here.
Place yourself on the sideline that is the most crowded. The one with the bleachers and everything behind it. That will help a lot with the distractions behind.
Your first one seems as if you are looking UP at the players and that seems odd to me. I shoot this shot in every game I shoot and I rarely have the problem with the background problem like that one. Can you tell me more about how that one is shot?

They definitely could use some cropping. I rarely shoot at anything less than 200mm unless the action is coming directly at me and I have no choice. I'd say 80% of everything is at 200mm. The rest is either too close to me-as in taking a cleat to the lens-or it's the money shots of players on the sidelines getting a drink or something.
Get close, minimize distractions through every avenue open to you. Reduce your contrast considerably so that helmets aren't full of blacked out faces. Crop in post.

 

[GraceNFaith]

Minimize background distractions. If you can move behind the end line when the offense is at the +30. That will help getting the bleachers out of the background. Shoot low, low, low by kneeling on the ground. Players look bigger. Your 18-250mm is passable in day games but I wouldn't recommend it for night games. Your shots will either be blurry due to motion blur or severely underexposed. Judging from the shadows on the ground this was a 'high sun' game. Shadows tend to be harsher. As Tony S stated shoot RAW (I just shoot RAW all the time), you can get back some of that shadow detail in post. Shoot tight and crop out distracting elements on the fringes. Just ask yourself 'what do you want the audience to see that's special about this image?' For example #4, I assume you want the audience to see #7 diving out of bounds while being pushed by the 2 defenders and not the scoreboard in the background or the other players on the right hand side. So just crop tight around your focus and showcase the nice action shot you caught. Hope that helps.

 

[MSnowy]

Crop tight on players on the sideline in the fourth one down and you have a really nice football picture.

 

[ceejtank]

Why wasn't the kicker wearing a shoe on his kicking foot in picture 2?

 

[GraceNFaith]

Why wasn't the kicker wearing a shoe on his kicking foot in picture 2?

Some kickers have better control with no shoe on. It's a personal preference. Frankly I wouldn't be kicking like that especially if it was snowy or freezing.

 

[R3d]

Thanks for the feedback. Mleek: I'm not sure what to tell you about the effect of "looking up". I'm not the tallest guy in the world, maybe that has something to do with it? Most games I'll be attending will be high sun games I think, so I'll be adjusting what I'm doing in post processing for the next one. I'm already shooting .raw so I think it's just a matter of finding what works for this style of shooting in terms of pp.

 

[ceejtank]

Why wasn't the kicker wearing a shoe on his kicking foot in picture 2?

Some kickers have better control with no shoe on. It's a personal preference. Frankly I wouldn't be kicking like that especially if it was snowy or freezing.

I played soccer for 20 years.. I don't even like kicking a soccer ball at the beach without a shoe on.. much less kicking a football without one.. haha

 

[Crazydad]

Go Roos! My kids and I have been to Austin College for camp several times over the years, I really like that campus. As far as c&c, I agree with what has been said above about cropping. Also, when dealing with the bright mid-day sun, maybe set the exposure to -.3 or use a polarizing filter. Shooting RAW is also a great idea for even more control over the final product.

 

[R3d]

^ That's awesome. They finally won this weekend!