Skateboard park

[Craigie]

I took a trip down to the local skateboard park today and these are some of the images.
C&C welcome.

1 Out of control


2 In control


3 Total control


4 Lost control

[Shadowman]

Nice captures.

[John 2]

Nice captures and titles.

[Craigie]

Thanks John and John 1.

[madcrow]

Great timing and capture.

[Craigie]

Thanks Maurice, about 75% of the images were binned, but it was a good learning experience.

[rpcrowe]

Gary, 25% keepers in a shooting like this is a pretty good ratio. I am happy if I save 10%. Of course, shooting in burst mode, a significant percentage of the images are almost duplicates. Shooting film, I couldn't afford to shoot like that...

[Craigie]

Richard, 75% were binned just looking at the images on the camera at the time of the shoot, more were discarded when I got home onto the computer.

[RBSinTo]

Gary,
It's tough to capture the peak of action, and I think you've done reasonably well to do that, but I think that the shots suffer from far too much depth of field, which tends to obscure the main subjects against the busy backgrounds.
Robert

[Craigie]

Thanks Robert for your C&C.
I have taken on board what you say about the BG in #1, #2 and #4, but I believe the BG is about right in #4.
To alter the BG in #1 and #2 in PS was a bit to difficult for me.
#4 was easier.
4

[RBSinTo]

Gary,
Since you haven't listed the specs on these photos, we have no idea what lens or lenses, ISO, shutter speeds and apertures you used, so it is impossible to say whether you could even have shallowed up the depth of field any more than what we see here.
Giving these specs when you post is always helpful.
And again by way of full disclosure, I shoot only film, but must scan my slides in order to post them on the Internet or even show them at my photo club.
However, my suggestions regarding depth of field were meant to be done before the fact by careful selection of aperture shutter speed and ISO, as opposed to "fixing it in Photoshop" after the fact. Much easier that way.
Robert

[Craigie]

Gary,
Since you haven't listed the specs on these photos, we have no idea what lens or lenses, ISO, shutter speeds and apertures you used, so it is impossible to say whether you could even have shallowed up the depth of field any more than what we see here.
Giving these specs when you post is always helpful.
And again by way of full disclosure, I shoot only film, but must scan my slides in order to post them on the Internet or even show them at my photo club.
However, my suggestions regarding depth of field were meant to be done before the fact by careful selection of aperture shutter speed and ISO, as opposed to "fixing it in Photoshop" after the fact. Much easier that way.
Robert

Robert
Regarding the specs for the images, if downloaded into PS or LR the specs can be accessed.
If that's not possible below are the specs, all images were taken with a Canon 6D and the lens was Canon EF 70-300mm 1: 4-5.6 IS USM
#1 f4, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 75mm
#2 f4, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 80mm
#3 f4, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 80mm
#4 f4.5, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 100mm

Regarding the depth of field, is there anything I could have done to improve the D of F with my camera settings ?

[RBSinTo]

Robert
Regarding the specs for the images, if downloaded into PS or LR the specs can be accessed.
If that's not possible below are the specs, all images were taken with a Canon 6D and the lens was Canon EF 70-300mm 1: 4-5.6 IS USM
#1 f4, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 75mm
#2 f4, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 80mm
#3 f4, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 80mm
#4 f4.5, 800sec, ISO 100 FL 100mm

Regarding the depth of field, is there anything I could have done to improve the D of F with my camera settings ?

It appears from your specs that you were shooting at maximum aperture or very close to it in all four photos.
You might tests to see what the difference in depth of field is if you shoot at longer focal lengths.
I believe your depth of field will be shallower for any given aperture as the focal length gets greater, which would mean shooting from farther back to get the same composition.
Simple enough to test.
Otherwise you'll have use faster lenses to shallow up the depth of field.
Robert

[Craigie]

Thanks Richard for your time and knowledge.
I will certainly try the test.