Don't Know What To Do?!

[Gas Man]

I'm obsessed with photography, inparticular Sports, Scenic & Portrait photography, but time & time again I am not getting the results I am after & am not understanding what to do with what I have.

I have a Canon 40D, Sigma 150-500mm, Canon 50mm 1.8, Canon 17-85mm IS, Canon 430EX II, I take photos that look OK, but I try to crop or sharpen & time & time again I'm just not happy with the results & at the same time I don't know what to do or what I am doing & I'm slowly losing interest & patients with it all.

[David]

Mate Ive been there, not so long ago actually. The only thing I can suggest is get yourself to either a photography basics workshop/course and/or a Photography Club and get some help from experienced togs. Take your images with you, show them what they are and why your not happy with them and go from there.

You can also do exactly that HERE on AP. You just have to have the gumption to put them up here and ask for help- I have more front that Myers so its no drama for me .. it would be a shame for you to lose your mojo for photography so early without having a fair crack and it and ASKING for help.

Hang in there, Ive been at it 15 months and Im still CRAP but I love it so much I wont QUIT :)

[Miaow]

Hey this happens to all of us - we are sometimes too hard on ourselves (know i am)

Just do the best you can and dont stress - crop if pic not right, sharpen if need etc

Sometimes a crop on a pic can fix a lot of probs

[ricktas]

Post some of the originals and your crops/reworks into this thread. Let us have a look at examples and we WILL be able to give you guidance on shooting technique and post processing.

You will be surprised at what you can learn when you show us, and read the feedback carefully and absorb the suggestions.

[etherial]

I know the feeling mate, and looking at some (most) of the pics on this site and the competitive comps can make you feel worse because they are so good!

I think David is right though, post up any specific images and see what others would do with the subject. I'm learning new ways of looking at subjects and my images every week.

[stevemack]

Hang in there mate we are here to help,the majority of the time its through being to hard on yourself
and i found when i first picked a camera up i was wanting to produce pictures way beyond my capabilities as this is not good because it will only cause frustration dont jump in to deep and push
yourself with skills you do not have (not being rude) start with the basics and build on it photgraphy is free no need to rush :th3:

steve.

[kiwi]

Photography is not a destination it's a journey

Rome wasn't built in a day

Don't run before you can crawl

Patience grasshopper

You get the idea

If you want help just pm me, you have great promise, you just need a mentor I think

[Colourised]

take it easy. pretty sure there are a lot of people tht is willing to help! especially in AP and i know im willing anyway! (eventhough im probably along the lines where u are too!)

u need to find your knack in it. i guess for starters you should try focusing in one of the 3 interests u have there. e.g portraits first?

since i see u have there a flash and a 50mm 1.8 which is more than enough to do a decent job with portraitures! maybe try and grab a lightstand and a shoot thru umbrella and head over to http://strobist.blogspot.com (dont know whether publishing other webs here is allowed, pls removed if its not allowed. tq)

hopefully youll learn a thing or two then start being really good at it! one at a time. then being satisfactory in that, youll move over to sceneries, then sports//etc you get the point.

im pretty sure others here have more decent advises to give! :food04:

[Analog6]

You need to do some analysis of your shots.

First, as Rick said post some images so we can give advise.

Secondly, look at the exif data for the best ones and see what it was. Write it down. Go out and reshoot and play with it a bit, different exposures and speeds but round the same as the original.

Check your metering, all over is Ok for scenes but for , eg flowers or people, centre weighted or spot metering may be better.

read your manual.

Go to the newbies section here and read up and do some of the exercises.

It takes a while to begin to get good consistent results and you have to work at it. But good results are worth it.

[Gas Man]

Ok, well here are just a couple of shots I've taken from last weekends games, so feedback, comments, help, what not is much appreciated, thanks, I've had to make the pics smaller so I could fit em' on here.

[kiwi]

try cropping tighter then repost

[Gas Man]

Like this?

[Prang]

I am no expert so I could be wrong, but with a 500mm lens F/6.3 might be a bit to open to get the depth of field to keep the batsman , stumps and ball sharp. With the settings you are using you have a depth of field of about 600mm which isn't much over that distance.
F/11 would give you just over a 1m.

The speed of 1/2500ths gives you a lot of room to play with dropping the ISO and or closing down the Aperture a bit, I would pick a shutter speed your happy with say 1/250 and drop the ISO to 400 or less and go for a Aperture of F/11 plus.

So depending on the light try and keep the shutter at 1/250 and the aperture at f/11 plus by adjusting the ISO.

PS I am guessing 1/250 would be fast enough for cricket?

They do look good though, I suppose the ultimate Photo would be ball ,bails and batsman all in the air in focus.

Cheers Pete

[kiwi]

Yes you are quite wrong, lol, 1/250s is way too low. I like to keep ss above 1/1500s for cricket to almost freeze the ball

Re dof 6.1 will be ok for bat and stumps but will miss keeper

[kiwi]

Now that new crop makes it a very good shot, I'd be proud to take that one

In general though you will get more keepers more front on to the batter

[Gas Man]

What about this? What do you think of the crops Kiwi? Remember, don't hold back with feedback, comments & what not.

[Prang]

Thanks I wasn't to sure about the speed.

As for the depth of field a 500mm lens at 20 to 25 meters at f/6.4 gives a depth of field of .390mm and .590 mm I thought it sounded a bit tight especially trying to capture the ball flying off Lol Daren.

Good Luck with it.

Cheers Pete

[kiwi]

That crop is a little tight left and right - you need a little space

You're on the right track though

[Gas Man]

What about sharpening it though? Cos I haven't done any to them.
Also, I have found when I sharpen an image then make the size of it smaller the quality of the image is crap, same when making it larger.

[Longshots]

FWIW they all look good to me. Sharp and well captured. I'm wondering why you sound so depressed about them. They're good :) Sharpening doesnt really seem to be something thats required at this size. And it will be different for various purposes. So if I were you, I wouldnt be worrying about something thats not required at this point.

[Gas Man]

Yea but when the image is alittle larger or at it's original size it's quite blurry & not sharp.

[Gas Man]

Heres some more...

[kiwi]

its hard to give specific advice re sharpening as it's very software specific. I do apply sharpening to every shot I post to the web, to a lesser extent when printing

[Prang]

The Jpegs you are showing are very small less than 100kb.

Do you use RAW? If you keep editing Jpegs they degrade, but raw files keep the info and you can edit and produce large Jpegs of them.

[etherial]

Hi I think your images are quite good, and now I think I understand where you are coming from. You are looking for that competition winner, the shots that everyone says 'wow'! Am I right? They take a lot of time and experience to produce (I hope I produce one one day!) I think all you need is time and practice and you'll start seeing improvements.

Posting on here really helps as people will suggest ideas that could make the shots work better. Also getting along to meets if you can helps, you start to get a feel for what different people do with the same subject, really starts to get you thinking.

I'm certainly no expert on this, but I think these shots are a little plain, and lack some sort of context. It would add more interest to see something else in shot to show the competitiveness, something like the keeper, or the bowler in follow through. They could well be out of focus but might just add that competitive interest and tell a bit more of a story. Just an idea.

[ricktas]

Agree with the above, the photos presented are quite good and there is some great advice from members. Take the advice on board and learn from it, and use it next time you go out shooting.

Kiwi, especially has given you some great replies. One thing I noticed is that looking at the histograms for some of these, they could do with a Levels adjustment. This has the effect of giving you nice deep blacks and a good range of tones across your photo. Check out the Levels tutorial here (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=22436), and it is amazing what a 20 second levels adjustment can achieve to the overall impact of a photo

[Gas Man]

Yea I do shoot in RAW, I have the mode on RAW & JPeg, I keep the RAW images & change/edit them when I'm happy with the edited image on the JPeg images that I test/experiment on.

I might start testing/editing the RAW images & see what I can come up with.

[kiwi]

Just be very subtle with any pp work, it's very easy to overdo it, too much contrast, over sharpened etc

As Rick said look at simply levels first, just squeeze each end in but be aware that it's quite ok that you sometimes blow bits of the uniform- it's the face that you want to expose for.

[kiwi]

Oh, re raw, seriously don't worry about that, if you are doing 100s of shots you aren't going to be worrying too much about fiddling with each one. Sounds glib but I only shoot raw where THE photo matters.

[Prang]

Oh, re raw, seriously don't worry about that, if you are doing 100s of shots you aren't going to be worrying too much about fiddling with each one. Sounds glib but I only shoot raw where THE photo matters.

You only use raw when the balls going to hit the wicket lol.

Shooting raw and Jpeg like you are is great as if you get a real ripper you have a lot more adjustment, but if you dont it is very hard to go back and capture that real ripper. :th3:

[MrJorge]

Some good advice in here. I too think you're on the right track with the cropping. Certainly better than your originals IMO. But agree with Darren that the 2nd recrop was perhaps a bit tight on the sides.

I also think I agree with Darren that the side on view probably won't have as much impact as say a front on view when taking shots of batsmen and bowlers. Obviously for bowlers best angle is probably from behind the keeper looking at their face.

Faces and expressions are really important to getting an emotive response from the viewer.

With the last two you've put they're more front on which is good. I'd probably still go more front on and would crop these tighter as well.

Your attempts are a ripper start mate. They seem pretty well focused, some good timing with the action and DOF looks ok. I wouldn't be too upset with these.

Levels adjustments definately look to be in order. And a pass of sharpening probably won't hurt.

I can't see your EXIF data but what mode are you shooting in? Probably best to stick with Av mode and dial in a suitable aperture. If you find shutter speeds are a bit slow you'll have to up the ISO.

Are you using a selected AF point or letting the camera decide? I'd suggest force selected the centre point and go from there. Also are you using AI Servo focus mode? If not whack that on as it'll help track focus if things move in your frame which will help you maintain good focus.

I'd also suggest continuous shooting mode if you're not using it already.

I think you've made a very good start here mate. I wouldn't be too upset. And sorry if you're already doing the things I've suggested and I'm telling you how to suck eggs but without the EXIF and a bit more info on what settings you've tried/used it's a bit hard to give specific advice.

[Gas Man]

Yea I'm shooting in M (Manual) mode, I have the following settings on Al Servo, Centre Focus & am using it on continous shooting also.