High School rugby

[guymclaren]

I shot my first Rugby game today but did not reset the white balance from another shoot, hence the strange colouring. I want to know what you would think of these pics without the colour aberration.

[Josh Bear]

Re: High School rugby

First is the my fav. I like the depiction of movement. I think you may get some comments about the fact that no part of the runner seems to be pin sharp. What shutter speed did you use and what method of focus?

The second needs a fraction more movement as right now they are just frozen in mid fall / push / tackle.

The third has great potential but the main subject needs to be more to the right. That is the main critique.

best regards

Josh

[guymclaren]

Re: High School rugby

I was on aperture priority as an experiment, next time I will use shutter priority

[Tinka]

Re: High School rugby

Hi Guy,
I like them and for a first attempt they are good, not great but very good, The first and second are the best, the third is let down by the cut off legs, but the expressions of the front two are well caught, compsition is poor, The first one is full of action but the face needed to be sharp, the second is my favorit, but I would be tempted to clone out the people on the right.
Sport photography is not easy, as I have found out.

[devilgas]

Re: High School rugby

the 1st would've been better if the head / face were sharp. he's got room to run into in the pic, so of the 3, the composition in this is the best.
the 2nd is a little lost. without knowing the game, the casual observer would be unaware he was being shoved into touch on the 22. i'd go for a much tighter crop on this to emphasise the action.
the 3rd is poor compositionally. there is loads of space on the right, with absolutely nowhere for the ball to move on the left. cropping the legs is no biggie, however with the amount of free space above the heads it looks like poor composition rather than an intentional crop.
of the 3, and as presented, i think #1 has the most promise.

having said all that, as a first attempt, they're miles better than what i produced at my first game. so well done on getting stuff that has potential and can be easily refined!

the colour cast, you can fix relatively painlessly with the eyedropper tool found in curves / levels in photoshop - another good reason to only ever shoot in RAW or at the very least run some test shots first

[Blithe]

Re: High School rugby

I thought the first photograph was out of focus apart from his bum. What a great shot that would have been had it been his strained expression or his hand on the ball in sharp focus against that definite sense of movement. The second looks as though you have paused the video, and please do not take offence, but made me smile - the chap nearly out of shot ready to finish him off with a bat? (from someone who knows absolutely nothing about rugby.) Use some of the determination show on the faces in the last shot and you'll get better the next time.

[guymclaren]

Re: High School rugby

THank you all for your critique, The lack of focus may have to do with the AI servo and the horrible lense I have. I will try some alternate settings next time, maybe a new Bigma lense all things being equal.

[devilgas]

[guymclaren]

Re: High School rugby

That would be nice but here that would be equivalent to an arm and a leg. maybe next month? I am getting a bigma this month fore the wildlife shots.