Little League Soccer

[gredan]

These are my first little league soccer photos. I love the facial expressions...

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2.00

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3

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4

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5

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6

[Mark1616]

Hi Greg, great to see you back shooting sports after a bit of a break... hope this means we will see more in the future, especially some of your volleyball ones as they werelooking good!!

As for these you have done well for your first time out. 1,2 and 5 are the best as you have framed tighter, with 2 being my fave. If you had been more zoomed on 4 that that would have been the winner with the action and effort the player is putting in.

What kit are you shooting with, I know D50, but which lens is on there?

If you get a chance to shoot again I would suggest getting more to their level rather than shooting down which will give you something morelike this (yes I know it's not football, but the only shots I have of young players doing a field sport)



Looking forward to your next series of shots.

Mark

[gredan]

Thanks for the comments, Mark. Your advice is much appreciated. After I shot these and looked at them, I realizedI should have shot from a lower perspective, just as you mentioned. I'll be out there again this week and let you see what I come up with.

I did shoot some volleyball over the weekend. I'll post a few later today.

As for the setup, I used a D50 with a 70-200mm F/2.8 VR, which I bought just a couple months ago. The lens is a lot better than the camera (or the photographer), but I intend to upgrade the camera in the future if I stay with it.

Great hockey photo, by the way! I'm sure some parent has a framed copy of that one.

Greg

[Mark1616]

You are right that is a great lens. As you have such a great piece of kit use it wide open at f2.8 as this will really make the images pop!!! If you are framing tightly you will get a lovely result of the player sharp and then background rapidly going out of focus. This narrow depth of field is what is desired 99% of the time so now you have a lens to do this take advantage of that. Also you will be getting the advantage of a faster shutter without the high ISO needed so another bonus.

One really important thing..... TURN OFF THE VR!!!! For shooting most sports it is not going to help and in quite a few cases it will hinder as you are trying to move with the subject and the lens tries to hold everything still.

As for the body, the D50 is not overly fast in either AF or continuous shot speed but you can still get really good results. The glass makes a bigger difference, so if the choice is good body and entry level glass or entry body and good glass the latter is best.

If you do stick with it (I hope you do) the D300 is looking to be absolutely lovely, if you don't have budget for that then the D200 should become a pretty cost effective option.

[JohnG]

I agree with Mark - very nice shots. Get a little lower and they'll be even better.

Nice job!