Shot this past sunday at a College Ultimate Frisbee tournament hosted by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- the Queen City Tune-Up 2009. This is one of the first college tournaments of the "regular season" for college club teams. Used a few different lenses, SMCT 135/2.5, A135/2.8, F100/2.8, M85/2...

Here's a few of my favorites. For the whole set (138 shots) or lens details (in the tags) check it out at

2009 Queen City Tune-Up - a set on Flickr

1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


6.


7.


8.


9.


10.

[Rense]

Wow, great shots!It's a nice impression of this sport event, you did a good job! The expression of the guy in the first one is very good captured.

[scott-devon]

Sports photography at its best, great series.

[Nowhere Matt]

That's another thing about coming to this forum. It is always sunny, rainy, snowy. You can come here and feel like you are a part of a frisbee tourney or hockey game or stand on the edge of a great crevice. You are looking at a rusty car one minute, a fascinating smile or cows in the meadows. We are transported by some of these images.
Thank you all of you.

[arpaagent]

Thanks all for the positive comments. It's always fun to shoot these events. I used to play with the NC State Team, and still know a few guys on there, so it makes it even more worthwhile. And there aren't too many people that shoot photos of these events, so the athletes really enjoy seeing photos of them playing hard. And it also helps that I can be right on the sideline, so I don't need a $1k+ lens to get decent shots.

-Jim

[gawan]

Nice action shots! The girl with a blue cap looks a bit like Julia Roberts...

[legacyb4]

Nice shots. Noticed from the Flickr details you were shooting with a K200D? Was that on AF-S or AF-C with center/matrix focusing?

Always looking to improve my moving-people skills!

[JMR]

Wonderful action shots, Especially like no-1, No-5, 8 and 9. And despite not having the frisbee in nO-9, I really like the rim lighting on the players.

JMR

[Sailor]

Remarkable captures - shows that Pentax cameras can do action photography . . . in the right hands.

I love the celebratory look on the girl's faces in one of the shots.

I really enjoyable series.

Jer

[Rener]

great shots and a very nice gallery.

cheers,

rene

[arpaagent]

Nice action shots! The girl with a blue cap looks a bit like Julia Roberts...

My wife looks like Julia Roberts?! I don't mind that comparison

Nice shots. Noticed from the Flickr details you were shooting with a K200D? Was that on AF-S or AF-C with center/matrix focusing?

Always looking to improve my moving-people skills!

AF-S ? AF-C ? Try MF-J ( Manual Focus - Jim ) Actually I did autofocus the ones taken with the F100/2.8 (I don't remember off the top of my head which of these photos that was), and they were in AF-S mode. I had the autofocus set the the "OK" button on the K200D using one of the options in the settings. And I had it on center weighting so I could choose when and where it would autofocus. I would like to try different options there, particularly trying more of the "auto" matrix focus point selection to see how it would perform, as well as AF-C. But since I was mostly using manual focus lenses, I didn't have too much of a chance to try out the other focus modes.

Wonderful action shots, Especially like no-1, No-5, 8 and 9. And despite not having the frisbee in nO-9, I really like the rim lighting on the players.

JMR

Shooting with prime length lenses make it interesting sometimes because you can't really control your FOV to get it just right everytime. But IMO it gets you shots that don't all look the same because you zoomed to the exact same crop every time, so I kind of like that limitation. But occasionally I do miss the disc or something else that maybe would have been better had it been in the photo.

Remarkable captures - shows that Pentax cameras can do action photography . . . in the right hands.

I love the celebratory look on the girl's faces in one of the shots.

I really enjoyable series.

Jer

great shots and a very nice gallery.

cheers,

rene

Thanks!

[KrisK10D]

But... but... you can't take real sports images with a Pentax

Nice work, Jim. I like the first 2... best action and expressions. And, #1 caught one handed? Great stuff!

[AlexanderMayorov]

Wowww.
I cant believe that you took this photos with manual focus lenses

[arpaagent]

Wowww.
I cant believe that you took this photos with manual focus lenses

I will tell you a "trick" that can help in some cases...If I can see the ground in my viewfinder, I can use the grass as a reference for where I am focused. So as I change focus it is easy to see the focus point shift down the grass, and makes it much easier to achieve sharp focus on the players. Of course, that only helps in certain cases, and a lot of it just requires practice and dealing with missing a few shots b/c MF is not always as fast as AF. On the upside, I have full control over the focus, but now any OOF shots are my responsibility , no camera to blame them on...

[AlexanderMayorov]

I will tell you a "trick" that can help in some cases...If I can see the ground in my viewfinder, I can use the grass as a reference for where I am focused. So as I change focus it is easy to see the focus point shift down the grass, and makes it much easier to achieve sharp focus on the players. Of course, that only helps in certain cases, and a lot of it just requires practice and dealing with missing a few shots b/c MF is not always as fast as AF. On the upside, I have full control over the focus, but now any OOF shots are my responsibility , no camera to blame them on...

I use MF lenses a lot. I use a bit in a different way. I just set focus distance a bit closer than my model,and later I press shutter, since models are not in focus shutter is not released.When camera detects model, blahhh I got photo.
No waste of time. Also, if you deal a lot with MF Lenses, you get quick and precise as AF Lenses.