More Football!

Yeah, it's getting repetitive. Maybe that's something that everyone should know about shooting. You really tend to shoot similar things each week. Football season is football season.

As John Madden would say, "Whap!" Because that kid just couldn't get the tackle.

Shooting football in the fall is a tough thing if you're not equipped with good lenses. You've got to have a pretty wide open shutter to keep from having to shoot low shutter speeds and you've got to have some long glass in the 300mm or higher range. It's really nice to be able to get shots across the field.


This is the other good shot I got. Originally a vertical shot. I can't really describe how to get good action shots other than really watch what's going on. I follow the ball and focus on what's going on. When there's a chance for a breakaway or tackle, shoot frames through the moment. I really like having a good sized card for this stuff. I can motor through stuff and it'll go through a good deal of images before needing to stop.

The major thing that happens quite often, as I've really stated a couple times now, is that there's usually going to be pretty low light at sporting events. The human eye doesn't need much to be able to see things clearly, but a camera isn't much the same. The film needs a good deal of light. You're going to hit some rough lighting out there and bringing flashes for indoor and a good low light telephoto lens is really going to help you. Know your equipment.

----------------

Next post I think I'm going to try to go completely away from shooting "news" sorts of things. I'll take some macro shots and maybe a portrait if I can find a friend to be a model. Maybe I'll cover some lighting stuff? Stay tuned.

Festivals Galore!

So this is the third festival I have shot in the past 3 weeks. I'd been told right away that shooting the standard face painting shot had been over done, but now I can see why. There is a face painting booth at every damn festival!

I always try to find things that give you the feeling of what's going on at the event. For me, as I walked around the latest festival I really noticed that there were tons of kids since it was at an elementary school. I like taking pictures of kids if they're occupied. They tend to forget about you pretty quickly if you just have patience.

This girl was working on some pretty cool chalk suns and flowers on one of the playgrounds and I really liked the lines all over sort of flowing around up to her. Rule of thirds probably makes this photo not suck really. Always look for the ability to frame something in a third of the photo, not in the center.

Of course it's autumn so there's going to be tractor rides. This isn't really a great image. There's nothing interesting about it at all. I honestly am not a fan of it. I should have gotten something of someone in the actual trailer.

This is an example of not exploring a shot well enough. I didn't approach people to get a better image.

This image is a little too yellow for me. I should have fixed the colors. However, I like the line of sticks and the depth. I wish you could tell more easily that those were caramel apples, but I had one chance to shoot this and wasn't really thinking about upping my aperture since it was a very dark room.

Basically when I go to an event where there's a lot going on, I pick out the things that I think are going to yield me a good photo (aka. safety shots) and then move around looking for good moments. You're basically always looking for kids doing things that might end up looking cute. I try to find children or people that are active or already doing something that they enjoy, and then try to catch a moment when they're doing something interesting. This can be done for the opposite end of the spectrum I guess. Watching sad people for a good sombre moment where you can get some deep emotion. Look for the good moments that tell the story.

-----------------------------------

Second event was another soccer game. However this was a totally different event in the long run. Had I known what was going to happen I'd have tried to gather up some more supplies or spent my time setting up something to make it go better.

I had to shoot the festival just before the soccer game so I didn't get a ton of time to scope out the field or set up flashes to try to gather some light. I was hoping to get there early and try some added flash light for a good effect, but things would not happen as I'd hoped.

Arriving at the event I park my car and empty my bag of the things that I know I won't need. Leaving my little flash mods and my wide angle lens (something that really doesn't get used much in soccer) I prepare to exit my vehicle. Of course as soon as I get out I feel a couple of rain sprinkles. Great. Shooting in the rain is never fun. You've got to keep your camera dry and keep the water off of your lens. It's times like these that I always carry a grocery bag with me so that I can cover my camera while I shoot (rip a small hole in the bottom of the bag and put the tip of your lens through it, cover camera with bag, voila! instant camera-condom).

When there's rain, there's usually a delay of game. Which of course means the light is going to slowly go away to the point where I'm barely able to get a good shot. I wanted to use a couple of flashes to add some light to the game as it got darker. I'd hoped to use a clamp to attach my flashes to a fence right at the edge of the field, but sadly I hadn't thought about the actual distance from one side of the field to the other. It's much greater than something like a basketball gym. At a distance like that, my cheap remotes just can't handle. Also, one of my flashes is only an optical slave (triggered by the light from the other flash) and the distance was too much for that flash to be able to see the light.

So added light is killed. Now I've got to shoot in very dark conditions. Extremely high ISO it is. And as a byproduct, grainy pictures. Something I really don't like.

These images look strange because it's so dark behind the players, but it's about all I could get. I can't really throw flash at them on camera because that'd probably be pretty hard from the distance I'm shooting (roughly 20 yards or more).

The shadows are too dark compared to the highlights. The stadium lights are too far away and sadly are the only source of light so there's too much contrast.

I had a ton of trouble keeping my stuff dry and once it stopped raining I had trouble finding light. I wish I knew how to get good shots from small town sports at night so I could give up some secrets, but I really don't.

Oops!

Double post. The post previous to this one was just thrown up today. Disregard the date that it shows.

Still, I did what I hoped I would never do. Take forever to update my blog!

Well, Since the Salmon Festival, I've shot some soccer, football, and another "festival" of sorts.

I'm going to combine the football and the soccer because I experienced the same problems with both. That problem was available light. There was little if any of it.

When you get to a newspaper, much of your sports shooting is going to be high school sports. This can likely be said for almost all newspapers out there other than the real biggies. As I said before, gyms are evil caves out to get photographers.

The same goes for night games outdoors if you're not at a really nice stadium with good lights. I'm shooting with a 2.8 fixed aperture lens. I should be able to shoot pretty well in low light, but when the sun goes down you can only do so much.

This shot was taken after the half of the soccer game. It was so dark that I couldn't get much more than reaction shots and that was at around ASA 800 at 1/125 F/2.8. Dark.

I really should have thought about the light levels earlier and either set up some flashes or shot more in the first half. Something I'll remember from now on. Sun down, done.

This was before the half and the sun was already setting. Note the blur in the ball. That's pretty unacceptable in general. This was at 1/500 of a second and there was still blur.

Aside from the light. Newbies wonder, how do I get shots like that? Timing. You really need to be patient and wait for the moments and then when they're about to happen, shoot like crazy. Don't worry about how many shots you're taking that don't work. Start motoring before the moment, and then don't stop until it's totally over. So many times have I missed the goal shot because I'm thinking about shooting the "running with the ball" shot instead of the "getting it in the goal (or line, through the net, etc)" shot.

Ok, Next post will be likely to feature photographers that you should at the least look at to think about how they're getting their images, and also how they got to the point they did work-wise.