Polo - Lacey Green, Buckinghamshire

[DavidGee]

Couple of firsts... first time using the Canon 100-400 L lens and first time photographing a polo match
C&C welcome

50D, f/6.3, 1/1000, ISO 1600, 400mm


David

[Dave Humphries]

Hi David,

This is a great action capture, but most obviously suffering from bad clipping of whites (either over exposure or something unfortunate happened in PP).

Good choice of aperture and shutter speed, but it is noisy and probably over exposed, so an iso of 800 would have done.
Are you shooting RAW? Forgive me if I have asked this before, but it looks like a jpg capture.

Anyway, I had a go at it:


I prefer a level playing field (groan), so I fixed that first (straighten and crop)
Then I used levels to move the clipped whites and (not clipped) blacks in a bit on histogram, so I could apply...
Just a little Local Contrast Enhancement with USM; 10% at about 20px
Noise reduce with Neat Image
Sharpen with USM (although it wasn't bad to start with) 130%, 0.3px, 10 threshold, latter is high because I'm working on noisy jpg.
Burn some of the still over-exposed bits; shirts and grass
Saturation boost of +10

It is a good capture though, you've got the riders and horses sharp, the ball in shot, good faces, and the flying crud from hooves is sharp against a blurred background too. Excellent.

Cheers,

[DavidGee]

Dave,
Thanks for the comments as this is the only way I will learn.

Unfortunately all my shots will show a non level playing field as this polo ground is typical of non high goal grounds in that it was built on the top of a hill and has quite a slope to it.

All my shots are now RAW so I can go back and try to duplicate what you have done except I do not have any noise reduction software.

Off topic question: could you give me some advice on noise reduction software please...

I use Cannon DPP to process the RAW file then finish off in Elements 7 and convert to a JPEG in Elements. I think that I could have spent a bit more time with Elements.

I took about 80 or so shots so have plenty to play with when I get home tonight.

Thanks
David

[Jim B.]

Hi David,
I shoot with the same combo you used.The 50D images get pretty noisy above 400 ISO,but there are NR programs that handle the 50D files very well.

Here are the noise reduction programs I'm familiar with.
Neat Image-to me,one of the best programs for processing 50D files.
Noise Ninja-runs a close second.
Both of these programs have camera specific noise profiles you can download from their websites.

I also have used Noiseware Pro and Nik Dfine 2.
Both are good programs,but need more manual input than the 1st two programs I have listed.

Free trials for Neat Image and Noise Ninja.

http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

http://www.picturecode.com/

[Dave Humphries]

Unfortunately all my shots will show a non level playing field as this polo ground is typical of non high goal grounds in that it was built on the top of a hill and has quite a slope to it.

Hi David,

Despite reality sloping, it might be one of those situations where you just have to do your level best (double groan).

All my shots are now RAW so I can go back and try to duplicate what you have done except I do not have any noise reduction software.

Off topic question: could you give me some advice on noise reduction software please...

I use Cannon DPP to process the RAW file then finish off in Elements 7 and convert to a JPEG in Elements. I think that I could have spent a bit more time with Elements.

Have you tried opening the CR2 files with Elements Editor (from right click menu choice in Windows file manager) - that'll get you into ACR as a pre-quel to Elements.
I suggest this as ACR (even the cut down Elements version) is quite powerful and I wouldn't mind betting that if you used its built in noise reduction (NR), on Details tab - it'll probably do for up to 800 iso. If ACR doesn't work with 50D files, you can fix that with a visit to Adobe's website, but do come back for more advice.

I too would strongly recommend Neat Image for anything stronger NR needs. I tend to build the noise profile from the image itself 99% of the time, rather than use the downloadable camera profiles, but that's just me.

Cheers,

[arith]

The balls the balls...... The ball is just a trick as far as most people would see and it is much better to concentrate on the people, some people like horses and this one is good.

[ANSORB]

One point - There is actually a blue colour cast throughout the image which you can remove quite easitly with Levels. Go to Levels, select the blue channel and move the mid point and black sliders a bit to the right. Not much, but it should make quite a difference. This attempt lokks OK on my monitor.



John

[carregwen]

Excellent action shot, David. I really like two things, first, the ball frozen in the TR corner, and second, the way the first horse is looking right into the camera. Very sharp too. I thought the colour a little distracting, and it actually works quite well as a BW, because you don't need the colour - the shot has quite enough contrasting detail and shape to carry it. Well captured.

[DavidGee]

Everyone,
Thank you all very much for your really helpful comments.
I am amazed at how well this shot turned out after bits of tweaking here and there particularly as it was first time with the lens and first time shooting polo and the weather was absolutely crap.
Tomorrow I am going to spend a bit longer on the other shots and not rush them through post processing.
Will post some more here when I get them finished if you do not mind.
Thanks
David

[Maritimer1]

LOVE the energy and expressions in your photo. It may be this monitor, but the shots with less noise reduction are looking better to me as the texture of the horses' coats and the the front rider's face are more apparent. It does make a great B&W shot. Why not send it to your local paper?

Myra