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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Just curious as my daughter is getting into competitive cheer and I am looking to get some experience here as most of what I shoot right now is football & baseball.
1) Is 17 or 24mm at the wide end wide enough for a group shot that would have maybe 15-20 kids?
2) Normally I use Center Point focus but for shots like #3, what focus points to you use? All of them or still center?
Cbrus, you won't be close enough unless your working with the organization hosting the event to worry about wide angles. Also wide angle shots only work if your dead center infront of the judges. A 70-200/2.8 will be your best bet.
AI servo, center focus.
Now I need to go pack, we have 2500 cheerleaders to shoot this weekend..
Edited by luketrot on Mar 28, 2008 at 12:53 PM GMT
Thanks luketrot - luckily I do have a 70-200 2.8 and ya, I won't be working these events..yet! When both of my kids are older I plan to dive more into making money from this. Now, just learning while taking their photos. Are you referring to AI instead of Al Servo? If so, why?
Let's assume at practice that I can get up front & center (which I will be allowed to do) I can use a wide angle. Would I still be at center point focus from that close?
Center point will work, but make sure that you are at a small enough aperture to get the entire squad in focus. Also, remember that DOF is 1/3 in front and 2/3 behind the focus point, so if the squad is set up deeper than they are wide, you may have to manually focus somewhere more toward the middle of the group.
AI servo will help to do it quickly, but I would recommend using the "back button" focus technique. Here's why:
You focus on your subject just before they are ready to jump, all the time holding down your focus button. The group jumps, and now they go OVER the focus point you have selected... the camera will immediately focus on the back wall.
If you back button to set up, then get off of the button, (essentially now in Manual Focus), they focus plane will remin as is until you hit the button again, and you should be fine.
It's kind of hard to explain here, I hope I made it clear enough.
Well ok #3 is the best of the bunch, but there's a girl in the back row who didn't get quite in synch for the shot! I had to find some way to be different here.
I also dig #4, 6, 10, and 12. Nice series, great punchy shots.
