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Archive 2016 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds

  
 
cocodrillo
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


Hi All,
I posted a set of shutter drag long jump pictures a few days ago from the recent Canadian national youth track and field champs. I complained about the backgrounds, which were a major challenge. Here's a small set of more conventional photos. Most of them were 'created' by shooting in very tight vectors to pick out gaps in the houses/tents/poles/fences in the background around the track. The idea was to 'fake' big crowds and a major stadium feel as best I could. All shot with a 1Dx and a 500mm f4.5 at somewhere between 4.5 and 5.6. Light cropping on most of the shots. Comments and critiques always welcome.

#1




#2




#3 (this one gives you a sense of the 'beautiful' backgrounds looking down the finish straight.




#4 (this one is shot with a narrow gap in the tents lined up in the background. A few degrees rotation to the left or right and the athletes start growing strange things out of their heads)




#5 (another frame shot with a background gap... you can see the edge of a pole down the left side)




#6 (this is about typical of the backgrounds at the track, which strangely sort of works with javelin.... the kid throwing has incredibly smooth technique and an arm like a bullwhip)




Aug 09, 2016 at 08:29 PM
CW100
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


I think that's why sports shooters like longer f2.8 telephoto lens - eliminates the "crap backgrounds" !




Aug 10, 2016 at 06:48 PM
cocodrillo
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


CW100... Sure, but I've shot with a 400 f2.8 and a 600 f4, and it wouldn't help here. In fact a buddy shot national juniors here a few years back with a 400 f2.8 and the background still stunk. There's only so much that can be evaporated with the lens.


Aug 10, 2016 at 06:53 PM
lionsfan54
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


I see zero problem with the backgrounds in any of these shots. And, if you hadn't said something, I wouldn't have noticed. I would have thought, "looks like a normal, busy track and field background"


Aug 11, 2016 at 08:11 AM
cocodrillo
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


Lionsfan54...exactly what I like to hear. Usually there is a fair bit of clutter at a track meet, but this place took things to extremes. Fences hard on the edge of the track and subdivisions/poles/tents running through all of the normally used sight lines. A pair of shots unprocessed to give a sense of what I mean.

#1 Midget boys 200m final, looking down the straight from the finish line.



#2 an ugly bend background




Aug 11, 2016 at 11:40 AM
Berkyboy
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


cocodrillo

I'm going to have to agree with lionsfan54 to a point,

lionsfan54 wrote:
I see zero problem with the backgrounds in any of these shots. And, if you hadn't said something, I wouldn't have noticed. I would have thought, "looks like a normal, busy track and field background"


If your assignment, or intention, was to just shoot a track and field meet than I think you have some decent photos.

Technically their solid, maybe their a little on the ''track and field'' cliché side, but their still not bad because of ''crap backgrounds."

What you're missing is, and I think what your asking for advice on, can be summed up in the following video about Australian sport photographer Adam Pretty which aired in 2012 during the London Olympics.

Pay attention to his formula for impactful sport photos.



In the video Pretty talks about building the photo in layers starting in reverse of what most photographers think of when taking a picture.

#1 find or identify an interesting background,

#2 shoot in interesting light,

and finally

#3 carefully compose your subject considering #1 and #2 (I'm paraphrasing here but this is Pretty's point).

The video also identifies the use of narrow depth of field and slow shutter speeds that come at the cost of taking a chance, or a risk, of not capturing the ''decisive moment.''

As far as writing off the advantage of f/2.8 telephoto class, shot wide open, I think you're overlooking the impact narrow depth of field can have for washing out ''crap backgrounds'' especially when their used with proper technique and planning.

I hope this helps.

Steve








Aug 11, 2016 at 08:07 PM
John Skinner
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


Venues are almost always 'great' image killers. A GREAT shot is only GREAT if all the aspects of it come together.

But lets place this in context... For what/where/when you were, these were about as good as you were going to pull out of there. You could have gone remotes, or extreme wides low, heavy panning, some intricate closeups.. But I'm sent out on these deals A LOT in the Summer months. They're never portfolio material. But for what I see, we had feet off the ground, expression, close crops.. all the basic starters for a good sports image.

I think of these local events as practice or experimentation periods. I take glass or angles and use them to make a starting point for larger events if I've not used that approach or angle before.

Your not going to loose the next years gig over missing these shots. So use this time to widen your scope / eye / perspective on what your shooting.

As an end note..some of these looked a little hot to me. I'd dialed back that exposure just a hair.



Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30 PM
cocodrillo
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


John -- agreed that these are standard stock shots, but then that's the financial bread and butter of what I'm doing. I had two 'clients' for the meet. The club I work with and then shooting stock of future Olympians that will trickle out to magazines and sponsors through our system over the next five or six years. I took the gear for some of the more creative ideas you map out, but man the backgrounds stunk for anything other than tight and a narrow vector to keep the background sort of clean. You're right on the processing... definitely my weakness, which is suffering from several years of almost no sports shooting.

Berkyboy -- thanks for the reminder and a good video for us all to periodically revisit as a refresher. The reason that was all set aside was, well, because there were severely limited options for doing something remarkable and the whole meet was at high noon. I'm not writing off the impact of narrow depth of field, which isn't that bad with a 500 -- I've shot quite a bit of track with a 400 f2.8 and some with a 600 f4. The 400 is too short for what I was doing and while the 600 would have been perfect and would have made dreamier backgrounds in my selects, it would not have helped that much with the backgrounds outside the narrow windows I shot through.



Aug 12, 2016 at 08:23 AM
Berkyboy
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Track and Field... working with crap backgrounds


cocodrillo

My routine for shooting any assignment is get the basic image that assignment editors would find usable, usually something framed horizontally and as well as vertically, and then go for the impactful creative shot that if you pull it off really ''wows them."

If you take the time to really look for good backgrounds their usually available it just takes a creative eye to see them and hopefully you have the right light, the knowledge and the equipment (as well as the time) to pull it off.

Steve



Aug 12, 2016 at 11:18 AM





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