patrickconnolly

"A few of people left when some of my photos were deleted."

 

Why on earth would I want to leave because some of your pictures were deleted?

Kristina,

 

Sounds like you are well on your way to an excellent adventure. Don't get wrapped up in discussions about equipment - focus on getting the most out of the gear you do have. Better gear doesn't compensate for poor skills. For now work on seeing and capturing the game in ways the parents wouldn't. The memory book is a great idea. I've done them using mypublisher and blurb. I create a book as a gift for the coach. The girls could then sign it and present it at the team dinner. This always ends up in sales to parents - they are generally more willing to buy when they see the finished product. Keep us up to date as things move along this fall. ... Pat

Oops, can't type to save my life. The caption was supposed to say soccer mom wouldn't get this effect.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Pat

Finally, exception to our rule of thumb. Crazy background blur make this an interesting shot (well, at least for me)<div></div>

Let's check the rules of thumb - Player faces, ball, action, background. Much better!

 

Try getting down low to take a few pictures to provide a unique perspective.<div></div>

Background blur makes things less distracting. Better but not great.<div></div>

Couple of things to keep in mind:

 

1. Make sure your horizons are straight - can often be corrected in post-processing. I have a bad habit of holding the

camera so that the images are tilted slightly. Drives me crazy ...

 

2. Watch out for backgrounds. Soccer complexes have a lot going on, and it seems that there is always something

distracting in the background. Careful positioning and/or fast lenses wide open can help. The wide open fast lenses

contribute the nicely blurred backgrounds which separate the 'advanced' photographer from most soccer Moms.

 

3. Digital cameras with less than full frames can be a distinct advantage, effectly increasing the reach of your lens.

With a 1.6 crop camera, your 70-200 becomes a 112-320 lens. In addition, digital lets you take a lot of shots for

relatively little cost. I'd spend my money on a decent digital SLR.

 

4. If your lens reach is limited, position yourself behind the goal and shoot the players coming at you.

 

5. Rule of thumb - you always want the following components in the shot: a) face b) ball c) action. There are

exceptions of course, but those are key components to pictures soccer mom wants to buy.

 

6. Avoid shooting into the sun - really messes up your exposures. Unfortunately most games seem to be played in

the harsh afternoon sunlight.<div></div>

Couple of things to keep in mind:

 

1. Make sure your horizons are straight - can often be corrected in post-processing. I have a bad habit of holding the camera so that the images are tilted slightly. Drives me crazy ...

 

2. Watch out for backgrounds. Soccer complexes have a lot going on, and it seems that there is always something distracting in the background. Careful positioning and/or fast lenses wide open can help. The wide open fast lenses contribute the nicely blurred backgrounds which separate the 'advanced' photographer from most soccer Moms.

 

3. Digital cameras with less than full frames can be a distinct advantage, effectly increasing the reach of your lens. With a 1.6 crop camera, your 70-200 becomes a 112-320 lens. In addition, digital lets you take a lot of shots for relatively little cost. I'd spend my money on a decent digital SLR.

 

4. If your lens reach is limited, position yourself behind the goal and shoot the players coming at you.

 

5. Rule of thumb - you always want the following components in the shot: a) face b) ball c) action. There are exceptions of course, but those are key components to pictures soccer mom wants to buy.

Okay, last one. Include pictures of the refs and parents to capture the feel of the game. This isn't a picture soccer

mom is probably going to buy individually, but if you include it in the CD she will love it.

 

(Sorry, field hockey Mom just doesn't have the same ring to it)<div></div>

Everyone has a boatload of individual shots of little Suzie dribbling the soccer ball - get closer and crop closer for the picture Mom can't get.<div></div>

This is now ...<div></div>

A great deal of my early work was as 'parent with a 75-300 lens'. Don't let that limit you - if you are using the same

gear then just make sure you do so much more with it than the parent can. WORK the game - move around to make

sure the sun is behind you and that your shots have variety to them. This means spending time polishing and using

your post-processing skills so your finished product is still going to be way better than what soccer parent can easily

come up with. You want soccer mom to say - "Since you are here I'm just going to put my camera down and enjoy

the game" - I've heard that a few times and it feels really good.

 

I spent money on the gear I mentioned earlier because I wanted my pictures to be better. In addition to amazingly

better image quaility, the big advantage having the white 'L' lenses is that it tells everyone you are serious. How does

this help? I've been able to shoot from locations that the refs would have shooed me away from if they realized I was

just a parent.

 

Not sure the money is worth it for the gear? Try renting it. I rented some top end lenses from borrowlenses.com and

it showed me what the possibilities were and helped set the direction for future purchases. (Now just have to save my

quarters ...)

 

I'll attach some photos as examples if I can master the technology.

 

Again, let us know how it is going!<div></div>

Good luck in your endeavor! It can be very exciting, but also very demanding. If you are considering this as a money-

making project, then I strongly consider you sit down and write up a business plan so you can fairly assess ALL the

components of this effort.

 

Start with your gear - good sports photography is high-end-gear intensive (read expensive). You need to have your

pictures be something that soccer mom & dad won't be able to capture with their consumer cameras and lenses.

That generally means long and fast lenses (preferably f 2.8) to get that 'pop'.

 

Your film shop is willing to give you a deal on film since they are expecting to do very well with all that film

development business you will be bringing.

 

The film vs digital debate has been beaten to death on this and other forums, but in action sports digital has a

decided advantage in the areas of speed and volume. In a single soccer or field hockey game I might take between

300 - 400 pictures. These are fast paced sports, and you will need a fast frame rate to help capture those key

moments, preferably 5-10 fps. I'd hate to miss the game winning goal or keeper save because I was in the process of

changing film (happened to me when I was shooting my daughter's games ...)

 

In your business plan take a close look at all your expenses and time invested. How much time will you spend with

post processing? Even if the shop includes the images on a CD as part of their processing package, cropping and

color correction will take some time. Who will be burning the CD's? How much time will that take? How much time

will it take to drop off and pick up the film and pictures? I'd wager that it will end up at significantly more than one

hour of work for that $25.

 

Don't be surprised if the league wants a percentage of your profits for the access to their games and players. This is

becoming quite common, especially for the lucrative team and individual (T&I) business.

 

Now, some advice on the positive side. Focus your efforts on younger teams and rec league teams. By the time

travel teams are at the U12 level, they have played in dozens of tournaments and the players and parents have seen

loads of pictures. They are still willing to look (kids love pictures of themselves), but soccer mom is much more

willing to open the wallet when the players are young and the family is new to the whole experience.

 

Having said all that, don't be discouraged by any of this. While it can take an awful lot of work to be profitable, it can

be a lot of fun and very rewarding in many different ways. I'd suggest you head over to the sports forum here as well

as at fredmiranda.com for a look at the pictures others are taking and the forum questions/debates. Don't be

discouraged by how good their images are, use them as examples for the shaping of your personal style.

 

Best of luck - let us know how it goes!

 

Pat

If you can get the 300 2.8. The Mk III and 300 2.8 are a great combination with exceptional focusing speed. The low noise of the Mk III has to be seen to believe. At 6400 with only minor noise ninja processing the images are quite acceptable given the conditions.

 

Have fun ... but realize that you'll be a bit depressed about having to send back the gear after the game.<div></div>

My laptop was just too slow for serious photo editing, so last month purchased an HP Quad Core with 3 gb of RAM and Vista. No problems loading PS CS3 or MS Office. Video card limited for gaming but more than adequate for PS Work, so out of the box works fine, no upgrades required. Cost of the machine was $1150 at Circuit City. I've been delighted so far.

Hand holding a non-IS lens for action sports generally isn't an issue since you will want a sufficiently fast shutter speed (say 1/500 or faster) to freeze the action. At fast shutter speeds motion blur from lens movement is essentially non-existent.

 

I bought the non-IS 70-200, deciding to save the extra dollars and love the lens. (Although I must confess that the saved dollars were quickly expended on other gear ...)

 

You may want to invest in a monopod though should you find yourself shooting non-action events in very low light, where a lower shutter speed is required.

 

Good luck with the sports!

My vote is for smugmug. While you can do an awful lot of customization, the pro account without any modification is easy to use. The quality of their printer (EZPrints) and the exceptional level of customer service makes them a pleasure to deal with. With the pro account you can set your prices. Smugmug does take a percentage of the sale like the answer above. I've used them for three years now and have had one complaint. They reprinted and reshipped free of charge - the customer loved that, as did I.

 

Thanks ... Pat

You can't assume that the increase in frame speed is going to lead to a direct increase in keeper rate. Your number of keepers will increase, but so will the number of images you must incorporate into your workflow. Say you go from 40/500 to 130/1500. That's a lot more images to store, process, etc. Additionally, quite a lot of those keepers will be very similar to others (since they will have been taken split seconds apart).

 

More images aren't necessarily a bad thing, they just have issues of their own to overcome.

 

Keep shooting!

Assuming that you will not be hand holding the monster, and shutter speed is appropriately fast to freeze the sports action, then yes, it isn't going to be worth the extra money.

I can heartily endorse smugmug. The site is easily customized (depending of course on your level of comfort and ability) and I have been very pleased with their customer service. EZPrints does their printing and I've only had one complaint from a customer - and that was not a printing issue. In three years with them I haven't seen anything that has made me seriously consider another provider.

You get what you pay for. I've used MyPublisher quite a few times and have not had any complaints. That may well be because of the relatively low cost. I haven't ordered the high-end leather book, but the medium and small books have been satisfactory when the costs are considered - $15 - $35 depending on book size and number of pages.

 

These serve adequately as season memory books for sports coaches and parents, as well as thank-you gifts for select wedding guests. Granted it probably won't hold up to close scrutiny when compared to services like Asuka, but then Asuka's prices are astronomical in comparison.

 

My only complaints are the MyPublisher.com sticker in the back of the book - I don't always want the recipient to be able to go to the website and figure out the cost, as well less than stellar customer service when software glitches were encountered a few releases ago. (Installing the software on another computer isn't always a realistic suggestion from the "Help" desk.

I've used Smugmug for a couple of years now. The lab they use (EZ Prints out of Atlanta) does a great job with the prints, while Smugug does a great job of hosting and displaying the images. I've printed everything from 4x6 to 20x24 prints as well as mousepads and have been very pleased indeed.

Here's another vote for smugmug. My experience has been very positive - the print quality is quite good, and their customer service is exceptional. The biggest advantage of the pro package is the ability to set prices. Yes, you can customize, but how much or little you do of that is dependent upon how important having a custom look and feel is to you.

I would recommend the professional level account for three very specific reasons:

 

1) You can set your own prices - otherwise they sell for the smugmug default price unless you do not allow them to order prints online. Making sales calls is fine, but if they can't order online when they are looking at your work limits your potential sales.

 

2) You can more completely customize the look and feel of the site - including using your own url address. Giving them your business card with www.jennifer.com looks significantly more professional than www.smugmug.com/jennifer (or something resembling that).

 

3) The difference in price between the professional account and the consumer is only $110 ($60 for power user) - a very small cost of business for what it gets you.

 

Whatever your decision, I have been very pleased with the level of customer service I've received from Smugmug, as well as the quality of the products.

 

Good luck !!

I use a pro account at smugmug. The multiple options smugmug provides gives your customer lots of options while keeping your maintenance effort to a minimum. You can dictate the display type for each gallery, or let the viewer decide. You can use passwords to keep certain galleries from public eyes. You can decide what size images the viewer can see (again by gallery) - including whether they can download your original image.

 

Additionally, you can customize the look and feel of the site pretty easily.

 

In other words, lots of flexibility, little maintenance on your part, and the ability to offer prints for sale at your pricing. These are traditional pints - not inkjets - and my customers have been delighted with their quality. That keeps me out of the print order fulfilment and money collecting processes - which for me is a good thing.