kids soccer from today

[Mark1616]

John, it looks like you have had a full weekend of shooting and these are sooooooo much better than the last football ones so that's cool. I agree with JohnG that most of the problem is due to the shutter speed being too low and changing ISO is going to help this. When shooting football (and most other sports but not all) you want a good shutter speed and personally I try to get 1/800th or above although you can get away with 1/500th if pushed and the only way you can do this is with ISO as by the nature of shooting sports you will already have the aperture wide open. There are times in really overcast conditions where I'm at ISO 1000 just to get the desired shutter speed to allow a sharp shot. It's better to have a little noise from the high ISO rather than a shot that is not sharp due to camera shake. I think that will fix most of the softness in these and allow you to do even better next time.

My faves are 2 and 4 but you have got the golden elements here which are players faces and the ball in all shots so keep at it and you will go from strength to strength.

[JohnG]

John,

Just to follow up. Shutter speed is KING in sports work. Don't let the 'outside' fool you. Like Mark I've been known to use ISO 1600 (I have the lowly 20d not the 30d so I don't get the option of 1000) on overcast days. Now, I wouldn't recommend using ISO 1600 with your current rig, but ISO 400 should still be good and ISO 800 should be usable with proper noise reduction software.

Also - while you're still getting used to all this - you need to be checking periodically to see what shutter speeds you're getting and checking histograms to see how the exposure is. By the way - be glad it was overcast. Overcast is your friend. It makes the lighting nice and even. Bright sun is the most challenging.

But the beautiful part is: you're improving every time. After this season you'll be providing advice back to the rest of us You may think I'm pulling your chain but I'm really not. I must admit, part of my purpose in providing sports advice is selfish. The more people out there trying to produce quality sports shots the more people that can learn things I haven't and can help me improve. And, even if you can't provide technical advice after only a few months, it always helps to see the types of shots other people take. It gives us ideas for new types of shots to take ourselves.

Keep up the good work!

[Mark1616]

John is right, most of us here love seeing people learn but also want to learn ourselves. I'm not a big fan of reading news papers however I always check out the sports section to see what people are shooting, angles, crops etc. By looking in the press you get some of the most helpful ideas as these are the shots that people are selling (I'm not saying they are always the best but more often than not the guys shooting know what they are doing).

[airbrushjohn]

mark and johng,

you guys are awesome! thank you so much for all of your help and wisdom!

[DRGSin]

airbrushjohn wrote:

mark and johng,

you guys are awesome! thank you so much for all of your help and wisdom!

Youre spot on there! These two guys have helped me a great deal.

[btrips]

Nice shots! Wouldn't it be great if we had this much fun learning something new at everything else we do in life. Keep shooting,you will get better.

btrips