[Buschmaster]

Don't worry, I won't talk about measurbating or anything like that.

I was thinking earlier while looking at my pictures what would make these pictures better? Why were these pictures bad? And more importantly, why were these pictures great?

I think you can break it down to a matter of luck and skill. They can cancel each other out, but not completely. For example, you might take an amazing shot based on your abilities, but if the sun hadn't been fighting the clouds would it have been even better?
There isn't anything you can control about that...

So I think both will ALWAYS be present.

One thing I think people often leave out is knowing your cameras fullest extent and not exceeding that.

So I have a K110D and some sub $150 lenses, and so I know I can't go to a basketball game rattle of 12 frames a second and have perfect focus on every one of them. It won't happen. So I have to take a step back and play the odds.

Often I think "If only I had the K20D and this set of lenses I could...." and I finish that sentence with any number of things...

But I know I don't need those things. I know that if I apply what I just said I can get good pictures with my much cheaper gear. I have to make sure I have the basics, of course. Proper focus, proper shutter speed, etc. So I know I won't be able to take as many shots, but I should still be able to take quite a few. I just have to be ready for a situation to happen.

Since one of the hardest things I've found to shoot to be sports, I will use a few examples from sports.

Crew recently posted a great set of baseball pictures. In a couple of these you can see action and a couple are more what I would call in-between the action.
Here is an example of action:


and an example of in-between:


Both are great captures, but are very different captures. From my experience, the first picture is much harder to take, with any set of gear, and especially with my set of gear.

I first started using this technique when I shot at a volleyball game but it could be applied to any sport and other areas of shooting as well such as wildlife.
I realized it was hard to quickly snap to a certain spot and take a picture with my gear at a volleyball game. The focus could be off, the settings could have been better, and I certainly could've framed it better. So what I did at certain points in the game was I took shots of areas where nothing was even happening... yet. I picked areas where awesome picture opportunities would be coming up. I tried to find the perfect settings, tried to find the perfect focus and then made sure it was in manual focus and manual settings and when the opportunity came I could snap the picture.

This was one of the only ways to get the action shots for me. And then I would try and get the in-between action shots at other times. This way you may not get that big money shot such as a monster LeBron James dunk, but hopefully you can still take some great action shots for the gear you have.

Sure, I'd love some new lenses, but I'm a college student. So in the mean time I'll be out there trying to prove the world wrong with my K110D and limited set of lenses that all cost me less than $150.

[Buschmaster]

Additionally, I should note that a bit of work after taking the pictures can really help you out, as well.

I've taken many sports pictures at ISO1600 and they can come out noisy. Here are some examples:

And here's an in-between action shot at ISO1600:


What I did with these was opened them up in Photoshop, went to each channel (Red, Green, Blue) and applied a surface blur, but only enough to get rid of some noise and yet keep the picture intact. Some pictures you can make look like they're almost ISO400 after this and it can get you some great stop-motion shots if you cannot afford a 300mm f/2.8

And as another point of reference for what a couple minutes in photoshop can do from the example above:

I believe it took it from a good shot to a great shot.

Happy shooting!

[High Roads Photo]

Great job on the B ball pix. Nice action of the batter.
Only things I noticed was; There is a color cast it looks to be red/magenta. This can easily be fixed in photoshop using the color balance tool (shortcut Control+B on a PC) and use the sliders to adjust the color. The opposite of red is cyan. The opposite of magenta is green. try 10 points to the cyan, if that doesnt clean it up try 10 point to the green.
It is nothing you did wrong, it is caused by the auto white balance in the camera.
Also try lightening up the image a little.

[Buschmaster]

Great job on the B ball pix. Nice action of the batter.
Only things I noticed was; There is a color cast it looks to be red/magenta. This can easily be fixed in photoshop using the color balance tool (shortcut Control+B on a PC) and use the sliders to adjust the color. The opposite of red is cyan. The opposite of magenta is green. try 10 points to the cyan, if that doesnt clean it up try 10 point to the green.
It is nothing you did wrong, it is caused by the auto white balance in the camera.
Also try lightening up the image a little.

It would seem the "b" in bball would be "base" from what you said next. If that's the case, "Crew", took those pictures, and in my 2nd post you can see what a quick photoshop did for one of them.

[Crew]

Hi all, these are my original shots, and they've since been worked on.. I had another thread (linked in the OP), where I got a lot of pointers on how to best fix them. Here's a two of the corrected ones - one action, one between. They were "auto-color" fixed in PS, and were originally that red-magenta tint seen in the first post.

Action:


Between:

[Eaglerapids]

Well Eric, what you're doing is laying down a good solid foundation with your present equipment to grow upon. All the fancy stuff will come in it's own good time. And when it does you'll be ready. I think many people jump right to the real expensive gear and it does them little good because they've never learned to use it. The pro's don't get those awesome shots just because of their gear, they know how to use the gear. And the way you're going you'll know how also:-).
Keep shooting!

[Jodokast96]

Eagle makes a great point. I've got pretty much the same line up as you, and it pretty much covers all of the basics. Until I can consistently outshoot my equipment, I know getting anything more will do little to make me better. So far in a year of shooting there have been maybe 3 instances (only 1 for absolute sure) where better equimpent would have made all the difference.