Georgetown College, KY Football

[ericp726]

Took these images at a Georgetown College, KY vs. Campbellsville University, KY Football game.

All images taken with a Nikon D7000. This was my first football game that I was taking pictures on the field.



Nikkor 80-200mm 2.8 AF-D (Two Ring)
Focal Length: 200mm
F4
1/2,500
ISO 100

Edited to conform to forum rules. I'm new to the forum and should have read the rules sticky before posting.

[Hill Country Hack]

WTG on the field access. Good job for your first effort. I myself am practicing my sports/action and have done a few HS JV games and have learned a lot and imporve every time I shoot.

Your compostion is too centered. I can see you were working around #41's right hand. Try pushing the bottom of the frame up just a bit and see if that helps. At the same time, move the right edge of the frame to #41's other hand. That will give more negative space for the ball carrier to run into.

The image seems a bit soft. It can be any of the following or combination of the following. Your shutter was at 1/500 and may be a bit slow for this action. You had plenty of light and next time either open the apeture more or increase the ISO to speed up the shutter to 1/700 or better. My first choice would be to shoot wide open apeture, then up the ISO if needed. You should not have too many issues with noise, and the noise can be cleaned up in PP.

Your lens also may get soft at the far end of the local length, but I doubt that is the case. My kit zoom is soft at the far end. I cured that by shortening the focal length between 200-250 mm.

Look in your manual to see if you can "back button" focus and set your AF to Server AI for continous shooting. I find it easier to track and shoot that way. Change your prospective, move about the field. I usually shoot in from an angle, stand at the back of the endzone near the corner and in the middle back. Go to youtube and search photgraphing football, there are a couple of good tutorials there.

Keep shooting and posting.

[ericp726]

Doesn't look soft on my screen. Could be because its resized down to 740px and 72 dpi. In the original picture I can read the tattoo on the ball carrier's right bicep and see hairs on his arm.

The shutter speed was at 1/2,500. It was a very bright day and I was having problems at F2.8 with the white uniforms being totally washed out. Thats why I was using F4. This was cropped a little to remove a player on the left side that was only half in the shot. I try not to crop much but the player in the background was distracting. I wanted to get the ball carrier's shadow in the full shot but the player that was cropped out would have been in the shot.

Here is a crop to the face of the ball carrier.

[Hill Country Hack]

My apologies...I read your ss at 1/500....not the stated 1/2500. Doh!

[ericp726]

Thats cool. I appreciate any comments. I'm just looking to get better at photography and am looking for any criticism I can get.

[Jim Bryant]

Looks as it you were shooting from an angle higher than field level, I can tell that by the cast of shadows and at ground lever you would have more of the background in the photo. Never-the-less, it's a good capture. The only thing I might add is crop tighter and get on your knees when you shoot. I normally use f2.8, that way the background is not only out of focus more, but it gives you a higher shutter speed. As for the contract of white uniforms.......it's one of those things we have to deal with and I have the ever same problem when the Seahawks opponents are wearing white uniforms on a sunny afternoon.

[mikoyan]

Looks nice but I like the cropped one a little better....but that's just me.

[ericp726]

At the beginning of the game I was elevated on the first platform of the stairs. Just trying a few different things and different angles. After halftime I shot the rest of the game from the sidelines and the endzones.

Here are two more images:

[Jim Bryant]

In the second one crop in tighter on the second image. The girl walking in the background is distracting. Remember crop tight so that the viewer's eye automatically goes to the action.

[ericp726]

Thanks Jim.