I'm so bluuuueeeeee......

[amy_bb]

Ok, so here's the deal. I'm hanging out a shingle, so to speak. Since I'm already at my kid's sports events, no one locally shoots Little Loop Football and I want to give it a go, I'm going to throw myself and my photos out there. I'm going to make mistakes, I may not sell a boatload of photos but the investment is very small (I bought my D7000 for my hobby) and I'm willing to invest in a Zenfolio site and some logo design.

Here's my problem. The kid's wear blue and when I look at the shots, all I see is blue. Blue. Blue. I shot on "vivid" mode (no idea what inspired me to do that) so perhaps that's my problem. The game was played at 5:30pm and the rest of the season will be played at 12:30pm so maybe the lighting at that time of day will help.
Here's a shot and here's my question:

Do you see too much blue? How do I keep the vibrancy but lighten the picture? Thoughts for improvement (yes, Jim, I will crop tighter next time )



Camera Nikon D7000
Exposure 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 200 mm
ISO Speed 500
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

[jcspenny]

Do you shoot RAW? What program do you use to edit? What I do if I find a certain colour is overpowering the image is adjust the saturation and luminance of just that colour using the colour sliders in Aperture. I've never used Lightroom but I would assume it has a similar feature.

Personally, though, I don't think it's too bad, at least not in the example you gave. Maybe a tad bright but it helps the players stand out in the background.

[amy_bb]

Originally Posted by jcspenny

Do you shoot RAW? What program do you use to edit? What I do if I find a certain colour is overpowering the image is adjust the saturation and luminance of just that colour using the colour sliders in Aperture. I've never used Lightroom but I would assume it has a similar feature.

Personally, though, I don't think it's too bad, at least not in the example you gave. Maybe a tad bright but it helps the players stand out in the background.

Thanks for looking, jspenny. I have shot in RAW but did not shoot this in RAW (used Jpeg fine). I use PSE 8 for editing and did try and pull down the blues but it began to look very blah. I tried to do a levels adjustment and saturation adjustment but just can't seem to get it right. Perhaps it's just the lighting at the time.

Maybe I see so much blue b/c I'm looking at the whole set on Flickr and all the shots have our blue uniformed players featured.

The set is here and you can see how the lighting changed from play to play.
Freshman Little Loop 2011 Scrimmage vs. Alden - a set on Flickr

[barabe]

I always shoot RAW, i can then play with the picture without loosing quality.

Good luck in your project. On my side, i did exactly the same thing with little league Baseball. My two sons play and i was there so why not take pictures. I made close to 2000$ in sales in the last few weeks. I shot individual pictures and team pictures plus action shots. almost everyone bought pictures. The association asked me to be the official photograph for next year. You are offering something that no one is offering and parents always are willing to pay for a picture of their children so money is there to grab.

[amy_bb]

Originally Posted by barabe

I always shoot RAW, i can then play with the picture without loosing quality.

Good luck in your project. On my side, i did exactly the same thing with little league Baseball. My two sons play and i was there so why not take pictures. I made close to 2000$ in sales in the last few weeks. I shot individual pictures and team pictures plus action shots. almost everyone bought pictures. The association asked me to be the official photograph for next year. You are offering something that no one is offering and parents always are willing to pay for a picture of their children so money is there to grab.

Thanks for your advice, Martin. I'm encouraged to see that you started out the same way that I am. Your sales figures sound excellent and you must do very nice work . I usually shoot RAW in low light situations but had not done so when I shot outdoors. I use PSE8 and I guess I just hadn't poked around enough with edits in RAW in this software. I have the capability of using 2 SD cards in my d7000 so perhaps I just bite the bullet and buy a second 16g card shoot all in RAW. I must ask, though. If you shoot all in RAW and have to convert to jPeg to upload for purchasing, what software do you use for editing that would make this process relatively quick? Especially on shoots where the lighting was favorable and you really don't need to do a lot of edits.

I'm hopeful that my pictures do the advertising for me and if additional work comes my way I would be thrilled. My boys also play baseball (my daughter is a gymnast but they have big photo setups at those events and I don't have the gear or manpower to shoot that except for my own purposes) and the boys also downhill ski race (a few photo ops there).

Edited to add:
PS. Just looked at your Flickr for the bball set. Oh my, they are so cute! My guys are older and I often forget that they started off just that way. Nice pics!

[Badcast]

Amy, use the standard picture control. When you go into the standard menu bump up the adjustments a little to make the colors better. The vivid control is more for things not people. Makes flowers and landscapes rich with color. That my take anyway.

Randy

PS how do you like your D7000. Have you shot any at 3200 iso yet.

[amy_bb]

Originally Posted by Badcast

Amy, use the standard picture control. When you go into the standard menu bump up the adjustments a little to make the colors better. The vivid control is more for things not people. Makes flowers and landscapes rich with color. That my take anyway.

Randy

PS how do you like your D7000. Have you shot any at 3200 iso yet.

Thanks, Randy. I just made this adjustment in the menu and we'll see if that changes things a bit on my next football shoot.

So far I really like the D7000 (former camera was a Sony a330 so it's been a bit of a learning curve but a big improvement so far). I have not shot at 3200 yet but my daughter is a gymnast and on the diving squad this year so no flash, low light, fast motion---I'll be all over 3200 in no time. That is exactly why I bought this camera.

Oh, and I liked it a whole lot more before I dropped it in my driveway and cracked the top, small LCD screen and caused it to leak black LCD stuff into a blob. The rest of the camera seems to be working fine so I'm not sure if I will send it in for repair or not. I had had it for a week

[Badcast]

Ouch!!!! I'd go nuts without that screen.

[3bayjunkie]

thats a great idea. i can't wait till my son starts playing sports. he is only 16mos right no

[Jim Bryant]

Yup...shoot RAW. You have more control over RAW images. Not bad, however you need to crop in more from the top of the image. You're getting to know me well! I was going to upload your cropped image, but the uploaded isn't uploading.