Football Photos - C&C welcomed

[marooncat]

Hi

I have just joined this forum and am hoping I can get some feedback on where I could improve with the photos I take for my football team. Sometimes I get "really good" photos, but most are more mediocre and I would love suggested where I can improve.

I use a Canon 750 with a 55-250mm lens. All of these were shot on the lowest aperture I could get from the lens, which depending on zoom was between 4 and 5.6 (Finances dictate a better lens isn't a solution unfortunately). I had ISO on auto and started the afternoon with a shutter speed of 1600 but dropped it as the afternoon when on to 800. I had set the White Balance to Cloudy, this was my first day taking this of auto having ready into it more last night on here.

AutoFocus was AI Servo and used 19pt AF. The metering mode was Partial Metering. Most of these setting are either ones I have been advised to use or read are the best to use.

I have not edited these at all, apart from slightly cropping and they are shot in Jpeg. I have photoshop Elements as an editing tool.

Photo One


Photo Two


Photo Three

[Mike Buckley]

Welcome to the forum, Fiona! You'll get much more helpful responses if you post images that are at least 1000 pixels on the long side. The files you posted are so small that it's difficult to provide helpful feedback.

[madcrow]

Fiona, welcome. + 1 for Mike's comments

[marooncat]

Thanks. That was the size I was "forced" to reduce them to so they would upload. Will have another go tomorrow.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[Geoff F]

These images are rather small but seem OK as far as I can tell at this size.

For this sort of situation I tend to prefer shooting with Shutter Priority. Your shutter speed seems to be working satisfactorily. Auto Iso does risk getting noisy images because it can auto adjust to something rather extreme so I prefer to set it manually, but keep checking on the results.

Choosing a preset White Balance can be a good idea but if you are moving around with variable lighting conditions you might find Auto WB actually works better all round. I normally shoot with AWB but use Raw not Jpeg so fine tuning the WB during editing becomes easy. Now, I use ACR for Raw conversion but previously I found Rawtherapee to be good.

Shooting with a wide open aperture can produce slightly softer results on most lenses so I prefer to close up a little. Even a couple of stops usually makes a noticeable difference.

Using AI Servo is good for fast moving action photography. I usually limit the number of available AF points to avoid accidentally getting false focus because the camera decided to focus on something in the foreground/background instead of the intended target.

Partial metering can be useful and I often use it for bird photography, etc. But be careful if you ever use focus, then hold focus/exposure and recompose the shot, because your exposure can change when you recompose. In those circumstances I prefer to shoot with Evaluative Metering but do a bit of manual exposure compensation as required.

ps. Have you read this thread about image sizes for uploading.

HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?

[Cogito]

I see Geoff typed faster than me.....!!

Welcome, Fiona! I notice you've taken Donald's advice and posted some images. Regarding the images, forum guidelines suggest a max height of 1000 pixels and max width if in landscape of 1600 pixels..........
I notice that you have the camera set to manual white balance and manual exposure. Perhaps auto WB and probably aperture priority may be a touch more convenient. Don't forget, post processing can cure many many defects! We all use it!
As to image content, there's not much going on in any of the images, perhaps shorten the focal length from the 250mm you are using here? If you are concentrating on a certain player the of course close in a bit. But I reckon you're at least 40 yards from the action in your 3 images (touchline to touchline is probably 45 yards). You may want to wait until the action is more central or more towards your side of the pitch?

[Shadowman]

Fiona,

Just a few observations/questions: 19PT AF, perhaps too many options for the camera to correctly focus on the action you're trying to capture. If you are tracking the player/keeping the ball within the composition perhaps a tighter focusing area is needed.

ISO 4000, pretty high for an afternoon shot but considering the lack of sun perhaps necessary; your histogram suggests a slight underexposure.

Shutter speed of 1600 should be fast enough to freeze action but also results in underexposure.

Agree that size of the images limit the ability to analyze the images but you say your images are "mediocre" so sharpness may or may not be the real issue yet. As your focal length in most of these are already at 250mm perhaps just getting closer might be an answer to your query. At least more closeup shots would give some variety to your images. Looking forward to seeing the images at larger size.

[Manfred M]

While we can't see how sharp the images are, due to the size of the images you have posted, but we can see compositional issues.

All of your images have distracting elements in them. The shots would look a lot better without those in them. All three images have busy backgrounds, and #3 is definitely the busiest. Image #2 has a player (who has been cut off) on the left side of the frame. Even though you are shooting at a 250mm focal length on all three shots, the subjects of your shots are simply too far away.

Try to shoot the players when they are closer to you.

[Wavelength]

I think a wide aperture can diffuse distracting activities in the background. It will also provide a fast shutter to freeze the action; keeping the ground leveled is very important. Brisk activity more striking than slower ones in sports
Happy forum activities, Fiona

[rpcrowe]

I have the devil's own time when I try to shoot Soccer or your Football. Simply because I don't really understand the intricacies of the sport. I don't know where to position myself and it always seems like the action is happening a half field away. Understanding a sport so that you can anticipate where the action will happen is a major key to getting good sports images.

Scott Kelby has a very decent video on general sports photography...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ4KsGYDzgU&t=8s

One thing that he mentions is shooting from a low (kneeling position). This will aid in isolating the player away from the background. Knee pads are a great help when shooting this way.

Another way to keep your backgrounds separate from the subject is to shoot at the longest focal length you have with the widest aperture your lens can use. Here is a shot a 300mm using f/4 which keeps the subject in focus but blurs the background. I don't shoot soccer so I have no examples but, here is an example from a polo match. I shot this from a low angle...



Since you don't have a 300mm focal length and your maximum aperture wide open is f/5.6, I recommend waiting until the subject is closer so that the DOF is shorter. Often deciding on the photo position is not your choice but, that of the game organizers who will assign areas for shooting. It was not until my second time shoot a polo match that I realized where to position myself to get the best image

[Shadowman]

I linked to a few pro Olympic photographers here and one thing they all said was "that shot I made I got lucky". Thing is they get lucky quite often.

[rpcrowe]

I found this diagram. I cannot vouch for its usefulness.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Fiona and welcome to CiC.

Firstly, for the lens you have used, the settings shown and information given and looking at the images (size limited) I would say you have done ok.

But, you want to know what you are doing right or wrong and how you could improve your end results, with the equipment you have.

1 - Subject separation

You want to achieve the best you can with the gear you have so I would suggest you are doing right by opening wide up. Whilst in 'theory' stopping down one or two stops is going to give 'sharper' results the chances are that this can be compensated for in PP. What you gain in speed and ISO advantages I would suggest outweighs the text book ideals.

I suspect you are only producing images for the web at lets say 1600 px wide so do a test with your camera/lens to really see if there is any difference between wide open and stopped down 1 stop after PP.

2 - Exposure

I would suggest you are always going to be shooting wide open (or possibly 1 stop down) so use a mode that fixes this.

I am not conversant with your Canon but with your aperture fixed your chosen mode should allow the easiest alteration of Speed and ISO. You have used Manual and Auto ISO, an excellent choice.

You will know roughly the minimum Speed you need to freeze the action, so if it's 1/800 to 1/1000 you can set this and let Auto ISO maintain your correct exposure, or, adjust speed to limit ISO. What I'm suggesting is that it does not make sense shooting at a speed well over what is necessary to freeze action IF it is at a cost of high ISO giving you noise.

3 - Composition

This all depends upon your skill and positioning available around the pitch. It's no use finding a position with an ideal background if you are going to be pointing at the sun

Don't forget images can be cropped and you do not always need to retain the original framing and format.

Players need to be recognizable and it helps with a ball in the picture, and bonus points when it's in the air

[marooncat]

Thank you all so much for you welcome and comments, I hope I have responded to them all below. I have resized the images and I hope now are clearer..

I should have said the use of the photos in my original post. They go on the club facebook page and my husband uses them in the match programme (and sometimes are printed in the local paper). I tend to always crop to 6 by 4 for this reason as that seems to work better for facebook and that is the roughly the proportions that husband uses for the programme. The programme is printed in colour and photos come out well in it.

At the moment I am just shooting in jpeg not raw as I really dont "get" what I can do in raw yet but that is one for the future. I do sometimes remove something from the background (eg a players foot) in photoshop elements if I think it will help the photo.

I am aiming to get along this afternoon again as our Under 19's are playing so will be trying out the suggestions then.

I have not really tried Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority, I seemed to fall into the total manual mode when I got the camera through something I read online. I will see how I get on with them this afternoon as well as exploring setting the ISO manually.

Re the AF points, I think that might be one of the drivers of some of my photos not being as crisp as I would like. I have three options on my camera; Manual Selection 1pt AF, Manual Select Zone AF or the 19 pt one so will try the other two this afternoon and see what I think of them.

I do quite often focus and then recompose the shot so perhaps partial metering is not the right setting. Again I will try other settings this afternoon.

I am in the lucky position that I can take photos from wherever I want in the ground, I tend to sit about one of the corner flags, the middle of the park is not so handy due to the park layout. I have a wee fold out step I sit on. I think I need to accept the limitations of my lens and that I can only get high quality photos when play is near me and I wont manage to capture anything much the far end of the park.

Photo One


Photo Two


Photo Three

[Wavelength]

They are decent images. You may crop away unwanted elements which adds nothing, just distracts. Then also must rotate the images to make them horizontal. You will definitely get wiser suggestions soon, i am sure

[Shadowman]

The first needs straightening and was have benefited more with timing the shot, interestingly what I like most about this shot is the kick of dirt and a much lower angle shot would have emphasized this more.

Second shot, again timing could really make this shot, as a compositional tool I would imagine that ball positioned right by the kicker's head and visualize how differently that shot would look.

The third, there is no action in the scene, would consider using slower shutter speed and time the player's movement to get at least one appendage in focus and let the rest go blurry. Panning the shot.

Also agree with others comments about cropping or just getting closer to the action if possible.

[Geoff F]

I agree with some straightening of #1 and #3.

#1 nicely shows that sometimes including some spectators can actually be beneficial to the overall scene.

The left side figure in #2 doesn't add anything, except distraction, so removing him would make a stronger composition.

#3 may lack the drama of fast action but I suspect there is still a decent image to be had there with a crop. In this case, the background is distracting so cropping will produce an improvement.

When cropping, don't let one fixed size limit your creativity; sometimes going to a portrait ratio, like 4 x 5 or 4 x 6 ratio can be useful for isolating one or two players from a distracting overall scene.