Pre-Dawn Workout

[LL III]

An interesting shot of an early (foggy) morning warm-up before a soccer match. I like the way it turned out, but it seems a little unnatural. Players are backlit by the rising sun (shooting into the sun).

Your thoughts?

Shutter Speed: 1/4000
Aperture Value: 5.6
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

[jasp]

LL:

I don't have much experience with backlighting. That being said, I read that you can expose for the background light by aiming there and holding your shutter button half way down. Then recompose your shot and engage the flash. The background light will be properly exposed and you will have fill flash on your subjects.

I like the shot as it is myself.

[LL III]

jasp


I like it too. Just an unusual result. Thanks!

[Chip]

I really like the light and mood of this photo. Very appealing.

My only suggestions are: (1) crop - maybe crop out the goal and the two figures on the right? With them looking out of the frame, it's a bit of a distraction to me; and (2) a bit more separation between the players would've been nice, but I know that's not always possible.

Again, very nice photo.

[GadgetRick]

Originally Posted by Chip

I really like the light and mood of this photo. Very appealing.

My only suggestions are: (1) crop - maybe crop out the goal and the two figures on the right? With them looking out of the frame, it's a bit of a distraction to me; and (2) a bit more separation between the players would've been nice, but I know that's not always possible.

Again, very nice photo.

What he said.

However, just a wee too much showing of the actual players to give a good silhouette. As someone said, expose for the sky behind, then recompose and shoot. Should give you what you're after.

All in all, not a bad photo though.

[Leumas]

I hope you don't mind, but I downloaded your image and made a quick post-processing (see attachment). I followed previous replies suggestions since I agree with them. I don't have experience on these type of shots.

- Darken the subjects because you only want the silhouette. Everything else is distracting;
- Lighten and increased saturation of the sky;
- Cropped the two players on the right;
- Added vignette.



Some suggestions:

- I noticed the shutter speed was 1/4000, so suggest next time decrease the aperture so you could have a deep focus. From the image it seems that the 2 right players are in focus but the center players are quite out of focus. And of course, select the right focus point.

- If from the preview image on your camera you notice that the players have more details than the silhouette, change to manual mode or use minus exposure compensation, instead of relying on post-processing. You could also use the point metering mode to expose correctly for the sky instead of the players.

[Jensers]

Both images have merit - partly because of the first one includes the goal - if you could use some of the ideas from others to enhance the silhouette and also keeping the mist - maybe increasing the black point and tweaking the exposure and saturation would get you there?

The vignette is nice.