Register · Software · Search · Image Upload · Buy & Sell · Reviews · Hosting

Moderated by: Carl Auer, guardian
Username   Password

Visit the FM Store · Image Upload · Buy & Sell
FM Forum Rules
Sports Corner Resource
FM Forums | Sports Corner | Join Image Upload
1
2
3 end
Go to previous topic Go to next topic
Nichole Manner
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Indy....thanks for the clarification on that. maybe she was injured? i just can't imagine making it to that level without being proficient at the most basic of jumps.
these are some amazing cheer photos!

Mar 15, 2008 at 12:40 AM
Dan N
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Rich Hurley wrote:
Dan,

How was the lighting here. It looks pretty well lit. Is that my imagination. I thought I had read no flash was allowed at cheer events. Is that true?


Rich,

The lighting was sweet. No flash here...

Tight shots were 800 ISO 1/400th @ f/2.8

Wide shots were 3200 ISO 1/350 @ f/8 for more DOF

Mar 15, 2008 at 05:18 PM
Pancrazio
Offline
Image Upload: On
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Dan,
These are great. I had to show my wife #3 and of course she couldn't stop there and looked at them all.

Phil

Edited by Pancrazio on Mar 20, 2008 at 07:10 AM GMT

Mar 15, 2008 at 05:36 PM
eeprete
Offline
Image Upload: On
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Dan, awesome stuff. #3 takes the cake for me, just like everyone else. A definite show stopper there.

Mar 16, 2008 at 05:08 AM
PowerPhoto
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Hey Danny Boy,
Real Nice stuff, Color looks great love the facial expressions not to shabby. I want to Know about the alomo.

#3 my fav

Later Shane

Mar 19, 2008 at 01:03 AM
Tony Masone
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


#3 and #10 are my favorites.

Mar 19, 2008 at 03:30 PM
nrichar5
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


amazing photos!

Mar 24, 2008 at 09:17 PM
Ayden Nathan
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Dan did you measure your light to determine what iso you could get away w/ for properly exposed tight and wide shots?

Awesome stuff, I agree that 3 is awesome but I really like #4 and #6 the eyes and the hand is just really cool.

It always amazes me how you guys nail your exposures, horizon's, noise and crops in camera since there is no time for PP. I sure hope I get to that level of sports photography soon.

Thanks for the inspiration,
Ayden

Mar 25, 2008 at 02:31 PM
Dan N
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Ayden,

Since we are always there WAY early setting up, and for the most part, the lighting is the same from venue to venue, we know what it is well before hand.

To double check though, when the lighting crew is doing their light check, we walk the mat with a meter and can actually ask if they can adjust if we have dark or hot spots to spread the light out more evenly.

The metering will be the same for either the tight or wide shots, we adjust ISO according to what aperture we have to shoot with for the DOF on the wides.

Mar 25, 2008 at 02:45 PM
Ayden Nathan
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Dan,
Thanks so much for the insight on how you were able to set up the shoot, obviously you are also very knowledgable on your lighting as well.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge,

Ayden

Mar 25, 2008 at 05:19 PM
bridow
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


great shots. i hope you sell a lot of prints. the noise reduction work you did on some of them are mighty nice

Mar 25, 2008 at 07:16 PM
P Alesse
Offline
Image Upload: On
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


bridow wrote:
great shots. i hope you sell a lot of prints. the noise reduction work you did on some of them are mighty nice


Dan, did you do any NR on these? I didn't think so.


Mar 26, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Ayden Nathan
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


I thought when you cover events for Hammy there was no time for any PP, which is why he only hires the best.

At least that is what I understood, and that is what I aspire to become, and hopefully in short measure and a ton of practice.

Mar 26, 2008 at 03:26 PM
Hammy
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Ayden,

I think what Paul is referring to is post processing for the web display here on FM.

We do fire all images from camera to the viewstations and slideshow with no processing other than size and rotation. The lighting on the stage was very even at that show - within about 1/3 stop all around - normally I work with the lighting company and meter the entire stage to within 1 stop.

But the edges fall off fast and the background is mostly dark - that is where you'll see noise in images #8 and #10 - moreso than #3 because I think 8 and 10 were cropped. Otherwise, we don't ever worry about the underexposed background and dial our cameras for the team members. When we sell images on CD, they burn as original as coming out of the camera. When we print larger than 5x7: 8x10-24x36 of those shots, we will hit them with a quick shot of Neat Image to tone down the noise.

Hammy.

Mar 26, 2008 at 06:10 PM
luketrot
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Ayden, Shooting Cheer is all about eye hand coordination. It’s about cropping tight checking your horizon then firing away; recognizing a OOF or inappropriate shot and deleting it without consciously thinking about it. The faster you can do this and the longer you can stay consistent the better you are. I’ve seen college kid’s outperform veteran sports shooters twice their age as the pace was simply too fast.



Mar 26, 2008 at 06:13 PM
Hammy
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


luketrot wrote:
I’ve seen college kid’s outperform veteran sports shooters twice their age as the pace was simply too fast.



Luke,
You're not that old are you?

Mar 26, 2008 at 06:33 PM
luketrot
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Hammy wrote:
[Luke,
You're not that old are you?


Dude, I'm like 60!!

Mar 26, 2008 at 07:33 PM
kbnovak
Online
Buy and Sell: On
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Hammy,

You need to brush up on your age guesstimation skills. :-)

Kevin

Mar 27, 2008 at 12:03 AM
mdude85
Offline
Image Upload: On
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Nice set. I've shot cheerleading competition once. It can get tiring!

Shot 3 is absolutely superb. Just crop a little tighter.

Shot 12 is great too ... I could never get over the girls who are trained to make the face where they seem almost "surprised" that they pulled off a move.

Shots 8 and 10 seem noisy.

Mar 27, 2008 at 02:07 AM
Dan N
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


No noise reduction at all on these..

I might have bumped levels a little before posting these, but other than that and a crop here or there, they are straight out of the camera.

mdude,

Tiring is not the word for what we do over a weekend... exhausting may be more like it! We start early in the morning and go late in the day for two days with very little breaks.. The squads rotate on and off continuously throughout the day. It's quite a workout!

How would a different crop on 3 help? I always leave a little bleed around the edges.. NEVER bump a subject like this to the frame.

12 is not a "hey I nailed it" face... this is the standard "hey I'm a cheerleader, look at me" face! About 98% of the athletes make some sort of cheer face, some funnier than others. I liked the shot because I think she looks like The Joker from Batman!

8 and 10 might look a little noisy. They were shot at 3200 ISO to keep the SS up and get enough aperture to have the entire mat in focus.

Mar 27, 2008 at 02:13 PM
mdude85
Offline
Image Upload: On
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Dan, just a little tighter crop, that is all. I think this shot would benefit from exact symmetry cutting right through the center of the frame. I was a little distracted by negative space on the right side of the frame. The ratio is also irregular.

When I shot an all-day cheer competition I was lucky to be able to use a company camera, because I probably fired off 15,000 shots! Not really my thing though.



Mar 27, 2008 at 11:07 PM
indyjones
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


How would a different crop on 3 help? I always leave a little bleed around the edges.. NEVER bump a subject like this to the frame.

I would agree with the OP. This is a perfect capture of a perfect group skill.

First of all, take this very same squad, clear out the venue, turn on the house lights, have a coach start the eight count "5-6-7-8", and have them repeat this toe touch 10 times. Only one out of ten times (this is my educated guess), for an all-star team, will you catch them in perfect unison at the peak of the jump and in perfect sequence. That's it...probably only 10% of the time. There will always be an errant leg lagging behind or one foot slightly higher than the other foot at the peak of the jump, etc.

Originally, I said this is most likely part of a two or three consecutive toe touch jump. Given the closeness of each row, they cannot segue this jump into a triple toe-back, or a triple toe-backhand spring, or anything else. They are way too close to each other. So given the moment, even if the shooter didn't know what skill was next, the fact that the squad executed a perfect group toe, in sequence, is indeed a marvel.

There is nothing wrong with this crop. It's fine as is.

Indy


Mar 28, 2008 at 03:13 AM
Hammy
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


I agree with Indy, and I've shot more than one cheer show

The subject and content is what Indy described. The crop happens to have nice even dimensions around the subject - the black space on the sides matches that of the top - and all those match the airspace and floor below the competitors.

But hey, 29 out of 30 posters thinking that the image is FANTASTIC isn't bad.

And Indy, you're correct - maybe only 10% of the time could they hit that and the fact the Danny nailed that one time makes it even better!

Hammy.

Mar 28, 2008 at 04:04 AM
Dan N
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Hammy,

I owe you a hug!

Indy,

I don't know you well enough to hug you yet!!

Thanks for the comments guys!!

Mar 28, 2008 at 05:02 PM
P Alesse
Offline
Image Upload: On
Cheer - Athletic Championships - San Antonio, TX


Dan N wrote:
Hammy,

I owe you a hug!

Indy,

I don't know you well enough to hug you yet!!


What about me? Don't I get one?


Mar 28, 2008 at 05:13 PM

FM Forums | Sports Corner | Join Image Upload
1
2
3 end
  Go to previous topic Go to next topic

You are not logged in. Login or Register

  Username   Password  
Lost password?