Denard Robinson

[mikoyan]

From Michigan Exposures

As I have posted in the Share Your Shot Section, I have been getting an opportunity to get down on the field at the football games of my Alma Mater (Eastern Michigan). This weekend, they took the trip 7 miles to the west and played my favorite football team (The Wolverines) and I got the opportunity to be on the field at the Big House.

Anyway, I would like to get more opportunities to get on the field at the Big House and I feel like my opportunity to do that is to improve my skills. So the best way is to look at my favorite picture from Saturday.

Now barring the obvious (I would like to get a faster lens). What else could I do to make this picture better? Would it help if I were to crop it to focus more on Denard (#16)? Would it also have helped if I got more of his feet in the shot? Or zoomed in tighter to get just his face and perhaps the ball? I know that Jim has said to try and get lower.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

And the fun stuff:
Canon 50D
Sigma 175-500mm lens (f5.0?) - This picture was extended to 500mm
f/8
1/500 sec
Auto Focus

[Doug Sundseth]

The short answer is that any of those would help the shot.

The other thing I'd do when shooting the shadow side of players is raise the exposure to get more information in the shadows.

Oh, and BTW, jealous.

[mikoyan]

Thank you for your answer. I think I'm gonna try to crop it a bit and see if I can brighten it up.

[mikoyan]

Does this help?

From Michigan Exposures

I took it in GimpShop and cropped it, did a little adjusting of constrast and brightness.

[Doug Sundseth]

I've attached a version that I hacked together really quickly (let me know if you want me to take it down).

Changes:

Cropped, but less tightly than yours.

Added a Brightness/Contrast layer that adds brightness and reduces contrast.

Added a Curves layer that expands the tonal range in the shadows.

Straightened the image (verticals to vertical).

The lighting here was challenging. Shadowed dark uniform and dark skin right next to sunlit white uniforms isn't going to be ideal (and HDR is a bit tough in an action shot ). If you're not too worried about filling your buffer before you get the shot, this is a place where RAW would really help.

For your next shoot, I'd try to pay a bit more attention to getting the bottom of the shot in the frame. I'm really missing the feet and knees.

HTH

[mikoyan]

Thanks. I like that a little better than the original but not as much as my cropping. Yeah, I realize that I need to get things like feet and knees in my shots but that's tough when you're trying to follow everything else. Besides that...Denard is fast. I don't think I had enough shutter speed to even catch him....

but yes, I would like to get better at this...

[Jim Bryant]

I went into curves and pulled back on the blacks so that you could see a face under the helmet and also straightened up the horizon in CS3. I know it's sort of nitpicking, but it teaches you to pay attention to the small details.

[mikoyan]

Thanks Mr. Bryant. That looks even better.

[Jim Bryant]

You're welcome..........glad to help. What I do is use the lasso tool around the faces and go into curves to pull back on the blacks.

[mikoyan]

As I said, I'm trying to learn this stuff as I would like to get more opportunities to go on sidelines because I do like foosball.