[Ex Finn.]

These girls already look fine to me, are you changing them?

Stay focused my good man, was referring to new CAMERA models.

[RonHendriks1966]

Stay focused my good man, was referring to new CAMERA models.

So funny. I'm also looking forward to K-5n with new AF-module.

[RonHendriks1966]

......can be very disapointing when you loose 5-2. Two off the goals (at least the work).

1)


2)


3)


4)


5)


In red is the team I'm following PSV/FCE and they lost against PEC Zwolle. There is a lot to do, because our girls are now at 5th place in the BeNe League Orange.

[abacus07]

I took some photos of an FIVB volleyball match a few months ago. It's not easy taking action shots but it worked out. K-5 with tak200f5.6 and tak105f2.8@f4. I found it much easier to get good photos out of the tak105 and cropping later. I was using high speed continuous shooting and it's the only time I've wanted it to be faster (class 10 card and only jpeg).



tak200f5.6 - f5.6, 1/250th, iso1600



tak105f2.8 @f4, 1/750th, iso1600

[The Kellyboy]

I was at The Red Bull Cliff Diving in Pembrokeshire, Wales today.

There's a few pics on my Facebook page :

Red Bull Cliff Diving | Facebook

[dadipentak]

I think we've got a strong team this year: Here's my daughter with a take-away from the player in green.

(WARNING: more photos to follow ;~)

[jppp]

Only 3 more rounds to go and our team leads by 7 points. Almost there, but I do not dare to say it aloud. Some shots from the latest 3 matches, all shot with K-5 and Tamron 70-200 f2.8, mostly wide open.


Last week this guy was actually drafted by our elite team who play on the highest level in Finland.


The blue team is the only one who still have a chance to grab the championship from us. Almost 500 spectators, which was great.


This guy was a sub and entered the game on the 66th minute. On the 67th minute he scored the winning 1-2 goal, which made many of us quite happy.


In the next match there was a lot of action in the front of the red teams goal.


The 3-0 goal of the match which ended up a 5-0 win.


And yesterday we faced a team who we had won twice but only by one goal in both matches. This is after the 1-0 goal.


3-0...


...5-0...


...and finally 7-0.

It's more and more evident that the camera+lens combination I use works best in good (sunny, bright, contrasty) conditions. In overcast and rain the autofocus struggles to get it right. Makes me wonder what to do...

---

Last edited by jppp; 10-01-2013 at 09:57 PM.

[Dice]

Some great action shots. Posted. Thought I would add a few from last years High School Track
50-135

DA300 Long Jump

DA300 2 mile

DA50-135

DA300 4X100

[Raptor68]

Some shots from the latest 3 matches, all shot with K-5 and Tamron 70-200 f2.8, mostly wide open.

Simply great soccer pictures in your postings.
Is the sharpness in your pictures out of cam or do you reach it with post processing ?
Would you mind telling me how many pictures you take during a match and how many you´re keeping afterwards ?

The reason for my questions is that I´m also taking pictures of youth soccer ( U13-U16 ).
I do about 250-300 shots per game and I´m keeping about 30.
This quota doesn´t make me feel quite happy.
My gear is: K-5 with Sigma 70-200/2,8 HSM II an AF-c with 5 AF points.

Here are a few impressions of an U14 game from sunday:

[GvilleRick]

A few shots from a tennis match this afternoon. All using a K5 and Tamron 70-200 f/2.8.

[dadipentak]

This quota doesn´t make me feel quite happy.

Don't worry about that. Sports photography is hard and if you're not getting bad shots you're not shooting enough. Anyway, suppose you got 100 good shots every game over a 12 game season, that's 1200 photos--who needs 1,200 photos?!

[jppp]

Simply great soccer pictures in your postings.
Is the sharpness in your pictures out of cam or do you reach it with post processing ?
Would you mind telling me how many pictures you take during a match and how many you´re keeping afterwards ?

Thanks for your kind words! Your pictures seem to be on par with mine, so well done ;-D

The sharpness has to be in the shot itself, it can't be brought back by any tricks. I don't add sharpness at all in post. I may add clarity and contrast and adjust other exposure related parameters, as well as crop, lens profile and aberrations. I was extremely upset with myself after the last couple of matches because of so many unsharp and completely out-of-focus shots, which would have been awesome to have. Quite simply the best ones were completely unusable.

Nowadays I take about 500 - 800 shots per game and spend a ridiculous amount of hours processing about 80 - 120 of them for various purposes (team web site, own web gallery, a couple of photo books, etc). I save every last shot I take, just in case...

I only use the center or select AF point because I want to decide where to focus. The camera doesn't understand football even though it has seen so many matches.

Edit: Judging from your pictures they were shot from behind the side line. Try positioning yourself at the end of the pitch where the penalty area border meets the end line. That's where I've been sitting lately, a couple of meters from the line. You get all the action in front of the goal, the faces of the offending team and sitting down the best angle at the action and less grass in the frame. Your 70-200 Sigma suits perfectly for that. The down side is that you'll miss all the action at the other end of the pitch. So, you'll have to move around to cover all bases. That's what I do nowadays.

[volley]

Last weekend we have had the German Championship in Speedskating Marathon in our area.
A few shots from that event.

K5 with DA 4/60-250

[dadipentak]

Nowadays I take about 500 - 800 shots per game and spend a ridiculous amount of hours processing about 80 - 120 of them

I take about 200/game, discard about 150 and process/post +/- 20. Still ridiculous hours processing, afaic but if I weren't processing, I'd be out taking more photos I'd have to process. ;~).

A few more from the hockey game

[Raptor68]

Don't worry about that. Sports photography is hard and if you're not getting bad shots you're not shooting enough. Anyway, suppose you got 100 good shots every game over a 12 game season, that's 1200 photos--who needs 1,200 photos?!

Hmm, I didn´t consider that point of view before.
The pictures are mainly used for a cd that´s given to the kids at the end of the season and also for the team website.
But a quota of 10% feels not much for the hours of work.
Think I have to change my perspective a little bit.

I was extremely upset with myself after the last couple of matches because of so many unsharp and completely out-of-focus shots, which would have been awesome to have. Quite simply the best ones were completely unusable.

This is exactly the same problem that I´m facing every game.
I´m going to try out the single focus point next time to see if I get better along with that.

Judging from your pictures they were shot from behind the side line. Try positioning yourself at the end of the pitch where the penalty area border meets the end line. That's where I've been sitting lately, a couple of meters from the line. You get all the action in front of the goal, the faces of the offending team and sitting down the best angle at the action and less grass in the frame. Your 70-200 Sigma suits perfectly for that. The down side is that you'll miss all the action at the other end of the pitch. So, you'll have to move around to cover all bases. That's what I do nowadays.

During the game I change my position a few times. But mostly I use the position you recommended.
It depends on how the followed team is performing ( offense action or defence fight ) because I try to get shots of every player.