Another Volleyball Thread

[higabyte]

I know there was a thread a couple days ago or so that was asking about indoor volleyball shots. Well that got me thinking, we play outdoor volleyball every sunday morning out here. Well last night I hurt my ankle playing volleyball last night so when I went out this morning to play we had an odd number so I opted to sit out the first game and take some shots... Well I like them for me, I'm such a noob at this thing.. haha but anyways, I shot them all in Shutter priority mode which makes me a little proud that I forced my self away from the auto feature, but my question since I've been rambling, is as you can see like everything is in focus. How can I blur the background while in, nevermind, I think I just figured it out, I go into Manual mode, go with a fast shutter speed and a is it a low aperture? Like I was shooting these in Shutter mode around 1/500-1/650 or so. If I shot manual, I could have did like f11 1/500 or something and that would have blurred the background a little correct?

Here is a link to the pictures:
http://traceyhigginbotham.com/index.php?option=com_zoom&Itemid=27&catid=5

I cropped and added a little saturation just cause pictures tend to look a little desaturated at times here in the desert. It was a rush too, so there are a couple that I over saturated imo that I need to fix...

[Nicole]

The way to blur the background is to use a smaller f/stop number (e.g. 3.5 -5.6on your lenses). So, using a larger aperture (smaller f/number) will let more light in to the camera, so you can use a faster shutter speed. So, like I said, a better setting for blurring the background would be f/4, 1/500th. Check out this post on the blog on How to Get Shallow Depth of Field in Your Photos (http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/how-to-get-shallow-depth-of-field-in-your-digital-photos/) :) Or you can also check out the case study by Ron Richardson on Photographing a Wrestling Tournament (http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/photographing-a-wrestling-tournament-case-study/). It should offer you some useful tips as well :) (edit: Of course I just looked at the photos and they were outside in the sun, you should have no problem getting fast shutter speeds with a wide open aperture)

[higabyte]

thank you ma'am!!

[Nicole]

Argh! I'm not old enough to be ma'am ;) :D lol Don't worry, you're forgiven seeing as that sort of response is drilled into military people :p

[svenblom]

outdoor photography is hard...check mine on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/svenmoniek/sets/72157600042352217/

[mdwsta4]

if you're trying to throw the background out of focus you'll need a lot wider aperture for that. say f2 or something like that (smaller number/wider aperture). be sure when you meter light for your readings you're reading the subject you're shooting and not the background which could cause you to under/over expose the shot. also think about pre-focusing so you don't have to worry about focusing when the action happens.