First time uploading, new camera, newbie, blah blah blah...

(Love the tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth!)

Welcome to the sports forum. Looks like your exposure is right on. I would suggest bumping up the ISO next time to get faster shutter speeds - that will result in a bit more sharpness. I also recommend shooting in portrait orientation - this shot is a great example of why - the subject is much more vertical than horizontal. Shooting portrait orientation will allow you to zoom in tighter and fill more of the frame with your subject, which will in turn cut out distracting elements like the other players not involved in the play.

Thanks for sharing - and look forward to seeing more of your soccer photos in the future.

Thanks for the input. Re portrait v. landscape, my thought was that a lot of the time you need more of the play in the scene to establish context. (IE player cutting in from the sideline, defender in the middle, net and keeper on the other side.) The shot above is cropped from a wider perspective.

Does it get that much easier to constantly track the action and stay tightly zoomed on the subject? I'm very much a newbie and I only have 5-6 games left in the season. And I find the evening games are not that productive since the sun gets to a pretty low angle with harsh light/dark extremes.

(I've been 'appointed' team photographer and I'm trying to get a 4X6 action shot of each girl on my daughter's team.)

Craig

Craig,

It gets easier with practice, but you're still going to be very limited with your current camera. Manufacturers just don't put the focus tracking ability in the digicams - there's really not a good marketing reason to do so - and, it's one of the tougher things to figure out. The problem with "context" is it's often boring - you want players that are engaging one another. For example:

Sure the shot could have been taken while defender was still coming over - but there's no story there. And again there's the boring backgrounds. By waiting until the players are engaged, the shots have more tension - and there's less distracting background. Also, isolation shots can be great too:


Now, these shots are with a different camera entirely - my only point was to show some styles of shots. In the end if you shoot tight you'll have less keepers but the keepers you do have will be much better. Give it a try for a game and see if the quality of your keepers doesn't go up.

John:

In the second shot, the blurry 'extra head' on her shoulders is pretty funny!

I do appreciate the pointers. If we had someone with your skills--and equipment--I'd be letting them do this. We don't so I'm trying to do the best I can.

BTW, originally I thought the plan was to do a CD with a slideshow of shots of the team in action. It was only recently that I found out they really wanted to give each player a framed individual print in action. Big difference, at least to me. However, the prints are only 4X6 so I do have some leeway to crop.

Craig

Craig - glad to help. As for getting more experienced photog to do it - that's tough. Parents are now used to getting shots for free from other parents. Too many would rather have 'free' than pay so you, my friend, are the wave of the future for youth sports photography.