Thanks for all of the positive comments everyone!!
Hammy- Thanks for another fun weekend.. it sucked getting home, but looking at the images on Monday made it worth while. I told you not to say anything about Coyote Ugly!!
Indy - I was wondering about the girl in the back after someone mentioned it.. honestly, I didn't even notice it until then. I looked up some rules, and couldn't find an answer. Thanks for the input.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
