Please help me with my sports technique

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Archive 2009 · Please help me with my sports technique

keoniahlo
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p.1 #1 · Please help me with my sports technique

Hi everyone,

I have been shooting for years, but I am still just an amateur. I really, really want to improve my sports shooting technique--soccer in particular. I was recently rejected by SS and since they don't C&C the photos, it's up to me to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated. Here are some shots taken over the past year or so.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

My longest lens at the time was a 70-200 with a 1.4x, but I've recently acquired a 200-400 f4 and I'm still getting used the beast. I'm not as quick with it, simply because I'm not used to the size of it. I have no real keepers yet, but I hope to improve.

I also need to better understand sharpening and how to do it on people, as it can really start looking goofy in no time flat. I am currently using Lightroom as my photo editor with PS as a tool for stuff I can't squeeze out of LR.

Again, any C&C would be greatly appreciated.

Aloha,
Keoni

PS. Sorry about the watermarks, the images are linked off of my smugmug account.

Apr 14, 2009 at 03:45 AM

skibum5
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p.1 #2 · Please help me with my sports technique

#1 you can crop a lot tighter, but seems pretty decent otherwise

#2 you can crop tighter on top and, if they are picky, you might want to rotate/crop to level the horizon, also looks like some tracking motion blur so maybe a bit higher shutter speed would've helped, but excellent action and everything

#3 ball too far away from heads and you can't see faces, just backs, if something is crazy dramatic, no faces is ok, despite what some claim, but this is far from crazy dramatic and timing is off

#4 maybe crop the top down as far as you can to rid some distrcting background

you can also post this in sports. many people dont look in critiques nearly as often

Apr 14, 2009 at 05:32 AM

keoniahlo
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p.1 #3 · Please help me with my sports technique

Thank you for the tips...I can see what you mean about the faces. And I will try this a bit later on the sports forum too. Do you feel that my shots are over-saturated? What about the white balance? I often feel like my shots are too warm but can't seem to find a way to cool it down without messing up the flesh tones.

Aloha,
Keoni

Apr 14, 2009 at 08:15 AM

skibum5
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p.1 #4 · Please help me with my sports technique

the last one is a little oversaturated and warm

Apr 14, 2009 at 05:48 PM

AuntiPode
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p.1 #5 · Please help me with my sports technique

I don't normally shoot sports, but judging from the length of the shadows, it looks to me as if the warmth is the natural result of the sun being lower in the sky and therefore not inappropriate.

Apr 15, 2009 at 01:29 AM


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