rugby - last match of the season (5)

[squirl033]

had some nice weather, so i went to Marymoor Park in Redmond for the Eastside Rugby Club's last home match of the season. have no idea who they were playing, but i wasn't there to see who won, so it really didn't matter! anyway, here are some of the shots i came away with...

line out...





running for daylight...





you can't catch me!

[squirl033]

any C&C on these?

[JohnG]

squirl033 wrote:

any C&C on these?

Did you heavily crop these or use a TC? There is some interesting action but the IQ just isn't there - especially shooting at f7.1. Given the short focal lengths in the exif I'm inclined to think they were heavily cropped which is hurting your IQ.

[griffina6]

squirl033 wrote:

any C&C on these?

Hi Squirl,

I actually like these pretty good.

Number 1 looks a little soft and I'm not sure what happened on the last one. Were you trying to pan to show motion? That is something I want to try but haven't yet.

Maybe my eyes are going bad but except for the softness of the feet in #4 the others look pretty sharp to me and I like #3 the best.

I too am interested in the questions that John asked about the extender and/or cropping. I just shot some lacrosse photos using the 1.4 ext and am worried about the loss in IQ.

John,

You mentioned

especially shooting at f7.1

I wonder, if there is enough light, should I be using an aperture value like 7.1 or 8 instead of f/4 (max for my 70-200 with 1.4ext)? I have read many times that the lower the ISO the better but not sure I understand the clarity as it relates to aperture except for the blurring of the background at the higher f values.

Thanks,

Andy

[griffina6]

John,

Thanks for the explanation. The rugby shots are very nice but yours are outstanding (as always). They really are gorgeous photos. Now I understand your feedback much better.

And thanks for the tip on the 70-200/TC.

[squirl033]

these were shot with a 5D and a 24-135 lens; IQ with that combination is not an issue. the play was on the near sideline, less than 15 yards away, so while these are cropped a little, it's nowhere near enough to affect IQ, especially after resizing for web posting. however, the first two were processed using Photomatix to bring out details in the shadows, which probably accounts for any IQ issue is that John's seeing... any small loss in IQ due to the HDR processing is much preferable to blown sky or silhouette players... the last one was intentionally shot at a slow shutter speed and panned, to get the motion blur.

[griffina6]

Cool. I will try that panning/motion blur thing. Most of the time I see this with motorcycles or cars. It's got to be harder when you have multiple people running. Like the ball carrier looks okay but the other guy is probably running at a different speed and different angle. And I guess the main guy's body was going forward while his feet were moving more up and down. That's got to be tough to capture. What kind of speed would that take 1/100 or 1/50? Maybe I can try it out on Saturday.



You also mentioned the HDR effects on the first two. Does that mean they are made from multiple exposures?


Thanks,
Andy