My first go at watersports

[kazuya]

this is my first go at anything moving faster than a horse
c&c welcome

[TCav]

The backgrounds are either white or very light, which makes your subjects underexposed. If you used Dynamic-Area AF and spot metering, the spot would have been centered on the focus point. This might have kept the subjects more correctly exposed. But considering the black wetsuits, that might have introduced a different problem. The D90 allows you to increase the size of the spot, so that might have helped there as well.

Otherwise, they're very nicely done!

[JohnG]

spot metering would be very challenging indeed. Especially if you're not relying on center focus point.

In general when I'm doing outdoor sports work I'll shoot manual exposure as much as I can. For the exact reasons we see here - differences in color of clothing and brightness of background in the frame are going to skew exposure if you let the camera determine proper exposure. BUT, if the sun isn't going in and out of clouds AND you're in the same relative shooting position, the exposure settings to properly expose for FACES should not change over short periods of time.

You simply check your shots when light levels change or you change shooting positions. But today's DSLR LCDs are good enough to judge whether faces are exposed properly or not.

[Mark1616]

The 1st and 2nd shots are very cool, I like the framing in the first. As has been mentioned they are under exposed. I'm with John, I shoot as much of my sports stuff in manual mode so I'm not being affected by backgrouds, clothing colour etc.

[kazuya]

thanks for the comments guys,
i dont think i would have done to well with manual exposure, it wasnt a very nice day and the light was changing quickly.
also by exposing for the face would i not risk overexposing the water, especialy the spray, i wouldnt want to see a huge white patch of water or sky, on a good note i shoot in jpg+raw so im sure with a little PP i can make the subjects a little lighter.

[TCav]

Originally Posted by kazuya

... by exposing for the face would i not risk overexposing the water, especialy the spray ...

Not by much. Next time you try this, use exposure bracketing and see how it works for the first couple of series.

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by kazuya

also by exposing for the face would i not risk overexposing the water, especialy the spray, .

Yep. But most people looking at a photo look more at the person and care less about water or sky. In many instances with bright light, you can't have both exposed properly without the use of fill flash, so my preference is always to have the person exposed properly.

Here's an example. Would this photo be more interesting if the face of the player were in deep shadow and the sky not blown out? Can't have both. So which is more interesting?

[kazuya]

yes i see your point, thanks for the example
im still not convinced it would work in the first pic though, but only because i consider the spray to be an important part of the pic.

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by kazuya

still not convinced it would work in the first pic though, but only because i consider the spray to be an important part of the pic.

Nothing wrong with that. As long as YOU are deciding what is the important subject. Pefectly valid to say the water is the more important subject for your vision. Just don't leave the decision up to the camera - it doesn't know whether the water or the person is important.

[Hawgwild]

Kazuya, hope you don't mind, I selected the rider's face and lightened it with a levels adjustment in PSE, then inversed the selection and did a shadow/highlight adjustment. Sometimes a photo can be "saved" this way, if it isn't too blown or underexposed.