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UT Women's soccer vs. Nebraska heavyweather !4AIf7oXcbA
Shot my first sports event ever yesterday, how did it turn out, /p/?
>> heavyweather !4AIf7oXcbA
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>> Anonymous
the simple rule is faces and balls. if you can't see the face and/or you can't see the ball, it's unprintable.

obviously, exceptions abound.

for soccer, my favorite spot is at the corners. you want to be shooting at your team's offense. it's nice to go out with a 300/2.8 if you've got one, or a 80-200/2.8 + tc if the lighting works out for you.
>> Anonymous
i think the pose is kind of weird in the first one, and the foreground players in the second one are too distracting, but not bad. also, you got some lean going on :p
>> heavyweather !4AIf7oXcbA
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I was shooting with a Nikon D2H with a 300mm f/2.8 manual focus Nikkor with a sticky aperture. Basically, it refused to stop down, so I had to shoot the whole thing at f/2.8. Depth of field was ridiculously razor-thin, and manually focusing was kind of a chore, but also a really good lesson in anticipation and learning the flow of the sport. I felt like I had the hang of it by the end of the game.

I also mounted a Manfrotto monopod to the lens, which helped immensely.

(We've got much better gear, but it was all in Dallas for the Texas v. OU game. I am looking forward to using a newer autofocusing 300 though, heh.)

Sorry about the new thread mispost. Here it is again, right thread.
>> Anonymous
why are you shooting manual focus? the d2h has one of the fastest af motors on the market. shit, it'll track an F1 car at 200 mph.

set it to single point af w/ the diamond shaped sensitivity zone and shoot, iono, 500 @ f4 iso 100. you don't want too much dof cuz the stands are gonna fuck up the action, you want to isolate it as much as possible, so shooting at 2.8 is not bad at all.
>> Anonymous
nm. skipped the 'manual focus' part.
>> Anonymous
1. How much did you use continuous shooting in all of that? You've never seemed like the type to want a bajillion barely-composed images.

2. I'm pleasantly surprised whoever you're working for has Nikon and not Canon equipment. I'm not especially partial to any DSLR company or system, but I don't like how Canon seems to overwhelmingly dominate everything with professionals, even though the only advantage they really have is slightly better sensors.

3. The shallow depth of field worked well, even if it was hard. I especially like how there's like a little spot of grass at the focal plane, along with the players, like they're on a grass raft floating on an island of bokeh. Keep it up if you ever shoot sports again. Besides, isn't shallow depth of field pretty much a trademark part of your style?

4.>>82686is easily the best, and>>82685and>>82683are really good, too.

>>82687would've been good, but there's something about the red-suited player's leg positioning that screws up the rest of the composition.

>>82693is meh; not bad at all, but nothing really to it.
>> heavyweather !4AIf7oXcbA
>>82726
The 8 fps is fucking amazing, and you bet I used it. I didn't use it all the time, however. Mostly I'd find a composition or a moment I liked and shoot two frames (mostly because it's hard NOT to shoot two frames with the D2H, lol), but I went into crazy autofire whenever there was a shot on goal or a kickoff or header.

Yeah, I definitely find the shallow DoF beautiful, but I would've liked f4 just to increase the number of keepers. I imagine with the AF 300 we have, I'll still shoot at 2.8, particularly for night games.

Yeah, ditto on the Nikon thing. I shoot for the Daily Texan, and they've used Nikon equipment forever. I love it to death, honestly. It just has the right feel, whereas everything feels a little awkward and badly positioned on the MkII and 5D that I've played with. And it's sort of testament to the incredible quality of Nikon that I was shooting with thirty year old (broken!) glass, and still got some pretty fantastic results.
>> else !L6xabslN96
>>82683
this is a sexy photo...
>> Liska !!LIVFOETqL8j
First one is my favorite- absolutely fantastic. I love action shots and miss doing so.
>> Anonymous
>>82726
>I don't like how Canon seems to overwhelmingly dominate everything with professionals, even though the only advantage they really have is slightly better sensors.
The reason for this is that Canon's been a little quicker to innovate in two key time periods:
a. They were quicker than Nikon to come out with autofocus SLRs. That pretty much gained them all of professional sports photographers back in the 80s, and there's not been anything compelling enough on the Nikon side to make them switch back.
b. They've been the only game in town with regards to full frame digital SLRs for quite a while now, other than Kodak's brief foray into it which barely counts.

And when you say the only advantage they have is slightly better sensors... well, if you accept that premise, that's now one more advantage than Nikon has over Canon, and that's a pretty big advantage. "Pfft. The only advantage Canon has is better image quality". What the hell kind of argument is that supposed to be? But even though I'm a big ol' Canon fanboy, I don't accept the premise that Canons have better sensors than Nikons.
>> elf_man !fBgo7jDjms
>>82736
There's soccer up at USD every Friday and Saturday night if you're interested.
>> Anonymous
>>82742

c. canon was the first to come out with a consumer DSLR. The digital rebel beat the D70 out the gates by about 6 months. Ergo, all the amateurs (e.g. /p/, dpreview, photo.net, etc) were quick to latch onto canon and denounce nikon as all things gay.
>> Anonymous
>>82742
>They were quicker than Nikon to come out with autofocus SLRs.
That'll get sports and nature photographers, but autofocus is really only essential or exceptionally useful for the extreme telephotos. Other professionals- advertising, general wedding/portrait/whatever, photojournalists, etc- have largely gone Canon, too.

>They've been the only game in town with regards to full frame digital SLRs
Full frame is tremendously overrated. The only thing it does besides give a little less noise is make it easier to get wide angles on the cheap, and anyone buying a 5D or 1Ds shouldn't be too worried about that.

And if we're talking crop factors, Nikon, Pentax, and others have an advantage overall against Canon here. The 1.5x crop factor yields generally better focal lengths with the old typical focal lengths than the 1.6, or at the very least, closer to other classic focal lengths.

>And when you say the only advantage they have is slightly better sensors... well, if you accept that premise, that's now one more advantage than Nikon has over Canon, and that's a pretty big advantage.

Canon sensors do tend to be less noisy than the competition, but not enough where it would make any difference in a reasonable purchasing decision.

Canons and Nikons and Pentaxes and so on all are close enough technically where one would expect a good variety among professionals. But Canon dominates, and I don't see why. I'd expect a variety- maybe 40% Canon, 40% Nikon, 10% Pentax (only because they don't have a fully "pro model" camera, though the K10D is close) and 10% other assorted brands- 4/3rds systems, Leica DMR, Sigma, etc.
>> Anonymous
not bad
>> Anonymous
I wish I had a long fast tele. Even MF. But they're all so ****ng expensive, still.
>> Anonymous
>>82683
It's pretty good. However, I don't like the player right behind the girl in focus because it is distracting and she seems to come sprout from the girl in the red.

>>82685
I really like this one. My only thoughts are the legs in the foreground are a bit distracting.

>>82686
I think this is the best photo you took from this set. I especially like the shallow depth of field.

>>82687
I think this shot is pretty good. However, the girl in the red's leg looks awkward like its a bout to break or something. Also, the faces are just slightly out of focus.

>>82693
This one is okay. It would be much better if you'd gotten both players' bodies in full. They're kind of cut off from the forehead up.

Overall, good stuff. I'd like to see more.
>> Anonymous
i could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure canon has a much larger advertising budget. not to mention, those canon ads with tons of white lenses are pretty effective.

white lenses are pretty too.
>> Anonymous
>>82747
Hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Even if you're right and the advantages are marginal, they were big enough for Canon to take the lead in a lot of areas. Really the surprising thing is more that Nikon stayed as close with Canon as it did.
> Blah blah autofocus isn't useful
Autofocus is great for sports and nature photographers. Autofocus is great for anyone who has to get focused and take the shot really quickly. Photojournalists, for instance, who have to get the shot while action's happening. Or wedding photographers, who are basically just a subset of photojournalists.

> Blah blah full frame isn't useful
Full frame gives a noticeable jump in technical quality. It's not as big as the quality jump between a 1/1.7" and an APS-C, but it's still a big jump. Who needs the highest possible technical quality? Pros again. And keep in mind that while Canon's low/mid-end bodies are 1.6x crops, the 1-series is a 1.3x crop. The last wedding I went to, the official photographer had a 5D and a 1D Mk II. Full frame for quality, 1D for speed.

Sure, they're technically equal now, but there were long periods where Canon had enough of an edge to get people to switch. And once they've switched, it would take a major lead from Nikon to get them to switch back, and Nikon only offered small improvements.

And, like another poster mentioned, don't underestimate the advertising power of a huge bank of white lenses at a major event.
>> heavyweather !4AIf7oXcbA
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>>82785
The D3 is taking back so many people already, it's LUDICROUS. I'm so excited.

Moar shots for perusal. Lol @ Texas girl's expression & bare midriff of the Cornhusker girl.
>> heavyweather !4AIf7oXcbA
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Goalie deflecting the ball. I thought the black specks were dust until upon closer inspection I realized they were dragonflies!
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Finally, the cheering section of lolis. They literally squealed when I panned the lens over to them and started taking pictures. I lol'd.
>> Anonymous
>>82794
if only you coulda stopped down for this one
>> heavyweather !4AIf7oXcbA
>>82801
Tell me about it. :/
>> else !L6xabslN96
>>82790
did you know dragonflies only live for one day?
pretty cool eh?

>>82789
Good shot, lol!
>> Anonymous
>>82844did you know MAYflies only live for one day?

fixed
>> Anonymous
Dragonflies do not live for one day.
>> Anonymous
OP, I am NOT a photographer but I'm a big soccer fan.

Your shots are all real nice. Whether or not they are appropriate depends on what they are for.

Your photos are perfect for being framed and hanged on a wall.
But they would not be good for a newspaper's sports section due to the small depth of field (blurred background), as the area where the ball is going to go is no less important than where the ball is now.

My thoughts anyway. Good stuff.
>> Anonymous
>>82978
The lens was broken. He wanted more depth of field, but couldn't get it.