On a bright, warm afternoon in November McPherson College traveled down the road to play the Bethel College Threshers. Bethel entered the game with a record of 2-6 and the Bulldogs entered the game ranked #15 in the country with a 7-1 record.
The game was a hard-fought contest. McPherson prevailed 34-16. The 2009 season is proving to be one for the record books for the McPherson football squad. With their eighth win the Bulldogs tied the all-time school record for wins in a season, equaling the famed 1952 squad. Another record on the day for the 'Dogs was reaching 418 points for the season, smashing the record for a single season with one game to go.
The light conditions for photography were great. Shooting at ISO 200 and a f/4 aperture allowed for great shutter speeds all afternoon. It was almost too bright, as the sharp shadows can attest. By the third quarter there was a thin veil of clouds that made photo conditions almost perfect. Another issue that came up was in the fourth quarter the grandstand on the west sideline was casting a shadow over the north end zone, putting the action in that area of the field in deep shadow against a bright background. Those image attempts were basically unusable.
Thoughts on Life and Photography by Dale Grosbach
Showing posts with label Technique. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technique. Show all posts
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sports Shooting - McPherson Volleyball vs. Southwestern
My sports photography has been centered on McPherson College football this season. This has been as much due to my personal scheduling as interest. Most volleyball games are either weeknights or on the same day as football, but in another town.
This weekend we got football and volleyball an hour apart in schedule and distance. We took in the Lady Bulldogs vs. the Southwestern College Moundbuilders in a post-season tournament game in McPherson.
The Lady Bulldogs are a young team, and have had their ups and downs this season. They finished the regular season with a 7 - 19 record. This placed them eighth among the ten members of the KCAC. The SWC squad finished ninth, but had beaten Mac in both of their meetings during the regular season.
The Lady 'Dogs started slow, losing the first game 18-15. From that point McPherson stepped up their game, especially their setting, and won the next three games for a 3-1 victory in the match.
McPherson's next match will be against the #1 seed Tabor College at Tabor's gym on Tuesday. Good Luck Bulldogs!
These images were my first try for shooting this sport. I'm really pleased with how they came out. I shot a basketball game in the McPherson gym last year before the upgrade to my equipment. The results that time were pretty disappointing. I'm much more satisfied with these images. To get fast shutter speeds I shot with the exposure compensation set to -2/3 of a stop. The ISO ran 2500 to 3200 to keep the 1/400s shutter speed and f/2.8 aperture I was using. To me the noise is acceptable given the limits of my D90, but I want to look into post-processing options for noise reduction. The lighting is about as the images came from the camera, so they are a little darker than the room appeared to the eye. They are PP'd with black point, white point and contrast adjustments.
There are images that have to be thrown out due to particulars issues of the venue: there is a bright sign at floor level that throws off the automatic exposure, and the camera occasionally captures the 60 hz cycling of the lights.
Volleyball offers different photographic challenges and opportunities from football. Obviously, you can get up close and personal to the participants much more easily, which is one reason I like these images so well for a first try. Inadequate lighting (from a photographic standpoint) and the resulting shallow depth of field make for interesting challenges as well. I would like to experiment with using manual focus, as the auto-focus would seek and find other targets (the net in front, or the crowd or player behind) than the one I was trying to capture.
This weekend we got football and volleyball an hour apart in schedule and distance. We took in the Lady Bulldogs vs. the Southwestern College Moundbuilders in a post-season tournament game in McPherson.
The Lady Bulldogs are a young team, and have had their ups and downs this season. They finished the regular season with a 7 - 19 record. This placed them eighth among the ten members of the KCAC. The SWC squad finished ninth, but had beaten Mac in both of their meetings during the regular season.
The Lady 'Dogs started slow, losing the first game 18-15. From that point McPherson stepped up their game, especially their setting, and won the next three games for a 3-1 victory in the match.
McPherson's next match will be against the #1 seed Tabor College at Tabor's gym on Tuesday. Good Luck Bulldogs!
These images were my first try for shooting this sport. I'm really pleased with how they came out. I shot a basketball game in the McPherson gym last year before the upgrade to my equipment. The results that time were pretty disappointing. I'm much more satisfied with these images. To get fast shutter speeds I shot with the exposure compensation set to -2/3 of a stop. The ISO ran 2500 to 3200 to keep the 1/400s shutter speed and f/2.8 aperture I was using. To me the noise is acceptable given the limits of my D90, but I want to look into post-processing options for noise reduction. The lighting is about as the images came from the camera, so they are a little darker than the room appeared to the eye. They are PP'd with black point, white point and contrast adjustments.
There are images that have to be thrown out due to particulars issues of the venue: there is a bright sign at floor level that throws off the automatic exposure, and the camera occasionally captures the 60 hz cycling of the lights.
Volleyball offers different photographic challenges and opportunities from football. Obviously, you can get up close and personal to the participants much more easily, which is one reason I like these images so well for a first try. Inadequate lighting (from a photographic standpoint) and the resulting shallow depth of field make for interesting challenges as well. I would like to experiment with using manual focus, as the auto-focus would seek and find other targets (the net in front, or the crowd or player behind) than the one I was trying to capture.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Technique - Learning HDR
I have been reading about and seeing many HDR processed images. My interest right now is not the more extreme images, but rather how to improve more traditional image capture. I have access to Photoshop CS4, and I have been studying up on how to use it for this process.
The two images are the finished HDR, and the 'middle' image of the three shot bracket taken. Note the improvement in the sky color.
Finished HDR Image
Original Image
This creek and the rock shelf are off Staley Road in the Northland area of Kansas City, MO
The two images are the finished HDR, and the 'middle' image of the three shot bracket taken. Note the improvement in the sky color.
Finished HDR Image
Original Image
This creek and the rock shelf are off Staley Road in the Northland area of Kansas City, MO
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)