Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda

Sports Corner Rules
Sports Corner Resource

FM Forums | Sports Corner | Join Upload & Sell

High School Football

Grant1120
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · High School Football

A few images from the Friday night High School Football game between American Heritage - Plantation and Trinity Christian - Jacksonville Fl., played in Plantation Fl. A highly competitive game.

A pass over the middle

NIKON D850 300.0 mm f/2.8 lens 300mm f/2.8 1/3200s 8000 ISO 0.0 EV

Hand off

NIKON D850 300.0 mm f/2.8 lens 300mm f/2.8 1/2000s 8000 ISO 0.0 EV

A gap in the line

NIKON D850 300.0 mm f/2.8 lens 300mm f/2.8 1/2000s 8000 ISO 0.0 EV

Heisman pose

NIKON D850 300.0 mm f/2.8 lens 300mm f/2.8 1/2000s 8000 ISO 0.0 EV

The open reciever

NIKON D850 300.0 mm f/2.8 lens 300mm f/2.8 1/3200s 8000 ISO 0.0 EV

The catch

NIKON D850 300.0 mm f/2.8 lens 300mm f/2.8 1/3200s 8000 ISO 0.0 EV

How many football players in one frame?

Sep 06, 2023 at 04:28 PM

roboticspro
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · High School Football

Really nice sequence of shots, well done; looks like the lighting level was a challenge!

Sep 07, 2023 at 12:05 PM

jcnemy
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · High School Football

Captured some nice action here.

Approaching to cropping varies from person to person, but the usual motto is 'shoot tight and crop tighter' and with that, curious what different/tighter cropping on photos 2 and 3 looks like?

Curious what your NR tools and workflow is?

Sep 07, 2023 at 07:26 PM

Grant1120
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · High School Football

jcnemy - Captured some nice action here. Bill - thank you

jcnemy - Approaching to cropping varies from person to person, but the usual motto is 'shoot tight and crop tighter' and with that, curious what different/tighter cropping on photos 2 and 3 looks like?

100% agree with the general philosophy of "shoot tight and crop for effect". A couple of important thoughts/facts from me:
1) This is the very first HS football game I have ever shot. I have done some flag football and other sports mainly lacrosse.
2) My intent was to shoot with 400mm f/2.8 but I dropped it off at photo repair over 3 weeks ago with the understanding alll work would be completed before the Friday 9/1 game but it was not completed.

I want the lens fixed correctly....
3) I used my 300mm f/2.8 so started out shooting more loosely than planned.
4) I often find it isn't possible to shoot some night lacrosse games on these fields because the stadium lighting is terrible. It is low level in the best of areas and inconsistent from end to end, and sideline to sideline.
5) On this particular field the lighting is awesome (that being a relative measure) because it is adequate and consistent.
6) The downside to the awesome lighting is that any part of the uniform/field that is reflective (helmet, gloves, white jersey, white lines, etc.) are easily blown out when the rest of the image is properly exposed in camera. Most of the back lights (fixed or cars) also impact the images.
7) I was using a 6 year old laptop to postprocess and it is simply not up to the job. The limitations of that system greatly impacted the processing of the 996 images I took on Friday night. This week I purchased a new desktop gaming computer!

Curious what your NR tools and workflow is?
1) My primary NR tool is Lightroom Denoise. On the 6 yr old laptop it estimated the time for a single image to be 2 minutes. It actually completed the denoise slightly faster than 2 minutes, however the WF was not sustainable.
2) I reviewed all images via FastRawViewer and eliminated approxmately 200 images. I didn't really keep an accurate count.
3) I broke the remaining up into 3 batches. 1st half, Half time, 2nd half.
4) The laptop took 25 hrs to denoise the 1st half and 38hrs to denoise the 2nd half. I ran the half time photos on a seperate15 yr OLD Dell workstation and it took 43 hrs to denoise 175 images (give or take). I am pretty sure it is clear why I went out and bought a new gaming workstation. I am really hoping I can get a few years out of this new system, while I decide where I am going with all this effort.
5) All images went thru a preset when uploaded to light room to address universal items,(lens cal, some basic settings etc)
6) As part of the WF I assigned a rating based on my own criteria. (eyes, face, ball, action, sharpness, perspective, etc). Anything below 3 I deleted.

In March 2023 I applied to Maxpreps (MP) to join the Professional Photographers Network. They accepted my lacrosse and Softball but wanted me to submit football and basketball. Of course this request was way after the football and basketball seasons were over. Hence shooting some football games. I have taken the 5 star images and have an additional higher level WF for these images where I spend a lot of time and effort fixing everything for MP consideration. My next MP submission will be 6 photos total: 2 lacrosse, 2 girls softball and 2 football. I suspect those will be a much tighter crop that the images I put on FM.

I put those images on FM with the hope that I would have the opportunity to have discussions exactly like this so I can learn and improve my football shots and all shots overall.

I am currently spending a LOT of time reading and studying on the concept of ISO Invariance (PhotographyLife). This is a new an interesting concept to me and if I understand correctly may provide better in camera exposure setting to help deal with both NR and reduce the Hot spots on these well light fields. If anyone has any experience in this concept I sure hope they chime in.

Sorry for this VERY long winded reply.

Sep 08, 2023 at 10:37 AM

crteach
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · High School Football

Grant 1120 - just a suggestion: Mention in your post that you’d like CC (constructive criticism or some folks might say C&C - critique and criticism) if you do want it. I actually started to respond to you with some suggestions, but since you hadn’t asked for any I deleted what I had started to write (I think I got myself in a little trouble one time with giving C&C when it wasn’t asked for).

Sounds like it’s time for a new laptop/desktop!

Sep 08, 2023 at 01:33 PM

Grant1120
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · High School Football

crteach - Appreciate that you took the time to provide input. I am completely open to CC on these photos.

I have purchased a new gaming desktop. It processed a single image via LR Denoise in 15 sec. Much better than 2 min!

Sep 08, 2023 at 04:08 PM

jcnemy
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · High School Football

jcnemy wrote:
Captured some nice action here.

Approaching to cropping varies from person to person, but the usual motto is 'shoot tight and crop tighter' and with that, curious what different/tighter cropping on photos 2 and 3 looks like?

Curious what your NR tools and workflow is?

Thanks for the detailed workflow explanation. Everyone has their methods based on what works best for them based on their needs and requirements.

As you alluded and mentioned your new computer….holy smokes!!! Those NR processing times would have killed me!

A general comment:

- I’ve never shot a D850 much less in low-light, FNL scenarios. However, based on the EXIF, I would consider halving your ISO which would drop your SS to 1/1000 which I think is fine for HS football. Yes - faster is better, but I think you need to balance in favor of ISO which might reduce your needs for high NR processing from LR Denoise. Heck, you might be able to do it manually and save all that processing time, even with a new computer. On my monitor, the noises reduction applied seems a little overdone causing a ‘plastic’ affect on some areas throughout the shots. But - some could argue that’s a personal choice…so process as you see fit.

Pic comments:

#1 and #5 – I know what you’re trying to capture here, which you need the ball in the frame and unfortunately with the height of it, it’s forcing you to open up the crop which introduces a busy and distracting background. The #5 shot is a little better but the DB is in focus and not either the WR or QB, which I think you’re trying to achieve. I feel both of these are tosses, but if you have paying clients and they are in the frame, then it’s up to you….are you providing quality or quantity when it comes to photos.

#2 – Nice! I Looks like you have enough sharpness where you could have an alternate, waist-height crop of just the QB and RB.

#3 – Nice! Maybe a tighter crop, say slightly above the runner’s knee to help remove some of the unneeded content on the right?

#4 – Nice. Best shot of the lot…but having a defender or piece of a lineman helps differentiate the shot from warmups. Yes - the far-side sideline is populated, but some would wonder if this was shot during warmups.

#6 – Great job getting the catch! Have you tried to see how a vertical crop would work which may help removing dead space on the left of the frame? I struggle at pass catches….mostly missing the ‘eyes’….so something to watch out for.

#7 – Nice.

Some closing thoughts:

- are you shooting manual or using some auto exposure….like ISO? I’d argue manual all through out the exposure if the way to go for constant exposure throughout the game. Yeah - you’ll need to tweak here and there, but I feel it provides the best uniform exposure which helps in faster post.

- Backgrounds. Position better or crop tighter. Like photos #4 and #7.

- you have the basics….ball, eye, peak action…so now it’s practice and honing your skills and vision. Keep up the good work and keep posting. I’m sure others will have some valuable feedback….that’s how I kept improving my craft.

JC

Sep 08, 2023 at 04:51 PM

Grant1120
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · High School Football

jcnemy

First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to critically review the images and share your thoughts. I find them to be incredibly helpful.

1) My camera setting for this shoot were: RAW, Manual mode, Auto ISO set to max at 8k, f/2.8 (98%), SS some 1/200, 1/2500, 1/3200.

The impact of the processing times were far beyond simply waiting for the NR process to complete.The long time frame drove me crazy but more important, it prevented me from running multiple tests on a few images to determine what the BEST NR setting would be for these images. I still should have but was overwhelmed by the time issue. I personally agree that some of the images have a "plastic" look to them. With the new computer, I will select a couple of images and run denoise at a variety of settings to determine what I can achieve and the best settings for that outcome. In this case, I guessed at a setting and simply accepted the results.

I agree with your suggestion to drop the ISO. Since I am going to test several descrete ISO values I will likely not use autoISO and simply set the ISO value I want to use. First I will cut the ISO in half (8k to 4k) and adjust SS to achieve proper in camera exposure. Next I will cut ISO in half again (4k to 2k) and keep SS high enough to stop motion, which will result in an underexpose to the camera image (I will accept up to 3 stops under). By doing so I hope to reduce the analog to digital noise introduced by higher sensor senitivity and reduce the over all highlights from the field lighting. If I understand the concept of ISO Invariance this will dramatically reduce the in camera noise. Since the noise is lower in the base data it will easier to work with in DN and thus can't be increased by increasing the exposure by 3 stops in LR. The net result (I hope) is less noise and I will also reduce the "highlights" which will result in fewer highlight blowouts (helmet, face mask, reflective gloves, background lighting, white lines on field, etc) and will reduce the steps in my WF. Hope this makes sense!

After I run tests on the DN settings, I will likely run some of these photos at the optimized DN values and reprocess. I will post when complete and we can see what impact it has.

Regards,

Sep 09, 2023 at 08:36 AM

jcnemy
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · High School Football

Grant1120 wrote:
jcnemy

First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to critically review the images and share your thoughts. I find them to be incredibly helpful.

1) My camera setting for this shoot were: RAW, Manual mode, Auto ISO set to max at 8k, f/2.8 (98%), SS some 1/200, 1/2500, 1/3200.

The impact of the processing times were far beyond simply waiting for the NR process to complete.The long time frame drove me crazy but more important, it prevented me from running multiple tests on a few images to determine what the BEST NR setting would be for these images. I still...Show more →

You're on the right track regarding experimentation and trying different 'recipes' to get the most from your camera while support your visions and craft. A few things I'm sure you're juggling with, but will throw them out in case:

- Got to stop the action. You can always do something about the noise in post..albeit it may look rough, but you can't fix motion blur unless that's an effect you're trying to add. Once the sun sets, lights blend with ambient light, and everything 'balanced'...I set f2.8, 1/1000, and manually adjust ISO based on location. Usually I can keep 6400 in the middle and bump it to 8k or higher in the end zones. Of course every place is different. You're on the right track to test and fine-tune your exposure recipe. So you know - the lowest I'd consider on SS is 1/800 and most shots in a sequence will show some bur, but may luck out where a couple are usable,

- As for handling noise, I'm actually experminting with LR Denoise to determine the best level per the ISO. So - I'm a work in progress as well and will be reaching out to the community for feedback and suggestions as well.

Look forward to hearing some updates on how your new computer and exposure experimentation goes!

JC

Sep 09, 2023 at 09:56 AM

brazzy_1
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · High School Football

Wow, I'm liking all the action shots! The contrasting colors of the two teams really makes the photos pop. Also, I'm not sure I've ever seen a team put the player's name on the back of their helmet, that is pretty interesting.

Sep 11, 2023 at 11:53 PM


FM Forums \| Sports Corner \| Join Upload & Sell

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.