Rookie Pics

Hey all,

 

AS a regular reader of this forum I would love to hear your

opninions on how to improve my photos/ what you think of them. They

are of an irish sport called hurling and have been printed in a

local daily newspaper. I've attached just three i had here on my

comp.

 

Thanks in advance for your time!

another sample

I do not care much for the first one, I find the shadows take to much from the pictures.

 

I do like the second one, if the three kids, I "see" more of the action of the game.

Shane, not bad, especially the second one. Not sure how big a hurling field is, but it looks like shooting hurling will be very similar to shooting soccer (football).

 

A couple of things you can do that will help. First, make sure you're shooting at a shutter speed of at least 1/250 shutter speed to freeze the action, if that's what you're going for. That shouldn't be a problem, even with a slower lens as you're shooting outside. Second, buy yourself a monopod. You can get one for about US$30 and it will greatly help eliminate camera shake, especially when shooting at longer focal lengths.

 

Other than that, just keep shooting.

 

Merry Christmas!

I've been seeing this sport lately, in particular right after Christmas parties. Players would sway side to side and hurl either on driveways or in bushes rather than on the field. ^_^

 

Like Dan said above, not too bad. How about shooting from close to the ground to render players bigger than life, or go a bit higher up to get the nice, consistent green background?

Not bad at all. Heckuva lot less boring than curling. ;>

 

Okay, specifically, the first photo is more dynamic but I don't see the ball. My philosophy in sports photography is: "No ball, no photo." (Okay, I have variations of that for boxing, auto racing, etc.)

 

The ball is visible in the second but the photo is less dynamic. A tighter crop might help but it also appears to be a bit out of focus.

 

Keep at it, you'll improve with practice.

Thanks for all your comments and help. I wonder could you crop this pic for me and see what ye come up with. im not all that used to getting the right crop yet.

im shooting with canon 350d and a sigma 80-400 f 4.5-5.6 as a hurling pitch is bigger than a soccer pitch. sometimes i find its not the sharpest lens is there another alternative without having to pay out very big bucks??

One more problem i find is trying to have a blurred background? as you can see in the pic the background takes some of the attention away from the action...what can i do?

 

Thanks again

 

Shane Murphy (ireland)

Shane, I wouldn't change the crop on the previous post at all. I like it just as it is. Nice action shot with Lex's ball clearly in view ;).

 

You're right, however, that the background being in focus does distract from the action in the shot. This is due to the lens you're using being pretty slow with a maximum aperture of f4.5. As for the sharpness, superzooms like the 80-400 usually won't give you the critical sharpness it sounds like you want.

 

Unfortunately, the solution to both problems won't be inexpensive. What you need to put the background more out of focus is a lens with a wider, fixed maximum aperture (f2.8). These faster lenses are definitely sharper than the consumer zoom you're using now. However, there's an inverse relationship between maximum aperture and cost.

 

There are a couple of directions you can go. The first would be a 70-200 f2.8 lens. To cover the large hurling field, you'd probably want to combine this with a 1.5X or 2X teleconverter. Buying used equipment in good shape, you could probably get both for around US$850. Or you could go with a 300 f4. for about the same price.

 

Neither option is cheap and you're still shooting at f4 or better. However, you would be using glass that would give you significantly sharper results. My suggestion given limited funds would be to go for the sharpness and blur the backgrounds in Photoshop if you want.

 

The only real way to do everything you want is to get a 300mm f2.8 or a 400mm f4, but then you're looking at spending thousands of dollars.

 

Good shooting, good luck and Merry Christmas.

Lots of great advice. I shoot with a 400/2.8 which provides an extremely shallow depth of field which isolates the subjects very well. However, bad backgrounds are bad backgrounds and even these lenses won't help. Sometimes you have no choice but hopefully you will find different fields which provide much better compositional opportunities. Arrive early and approach each field with a concious effort to manage the backgrounds. Look for low angle shots as well as higher angle shots, both of which have been mentioned above. Also pay particular attention to where the sun is, for all sporting activities. Be prepared to alter your location as the sun moves throughout a longer event or tournament.

Another thing you can do to help blur away background is conciously shoot with players closer to you on your sideline (subject much closer to you and much further away from fences, billboards, clutter, etc.) That greater distance between the player and background will translate to that much more blurred background, especially with your 80-400 f4-5.6. Like John said above, even with a 400 f2.8, if the player is right in front of a cluttered background, you'll still get a cluttered background.

I wanted to see how hard it was to blur the background out of the photo in PhotoShop. I extracted the players then three levels of gaussian blur. About 10 minutes. Doesn't look natural, but at least the autos are out.<div></div>