We're Married

[sehsuan]

to all those who have commented, thanks.

i have explained to StreetShooter today, i didn't feel good about my shots for this ROM thing - it was more of a trial-and-error, or a hit-and-run thing - my colleagues invited me to shoot, with more than ample cautions from me that i can't shoot anything to save my life.

i understand that there is a good lot of concern for me, but right now things are back to ok back home. thanks for the concern, really. i know i faulted, and that's at least a form of acknowledgement for what i've wrongly done.

anyway, i'm not cut out for doing wedding-kind of shoots, so you guys - in the end, what pleases one person's eyes may not please another's. i too find that there's not even a picture that would grace the occasion - but my colleagues are fine by it. they just wanted something visual to record the moment - though i did horrible, they are gracious and thanked me for being there in the first place. now, for that, i'm very thankful too - because i didn't manage to do them the favour. :embrass:

i'm still in the end, a P&S user on a dslr - i'm trying to expand on my composition. will take a loooong time to improve. but in the meanwhile, if i don't shoot, how to improve? :dunno:

 

[binbeto]

A few photography book could do you some good.

Even if you need to shoot to improve, at least do so with some understanding of basics like compostion, lighting and others. Try not to go the way of shooting a lot and just pick out the a few good ones.

Viewing others work might help too.

Keep on reading, seeing and shooting.

 

[Adam Goi]

Yeah ... only by practising the right techniques can make it perfect! :vhappy:

 

[Jed]

Originally posted by sehsuan
wow, Jed, i love your last post. it is indeed, what i'm trying to say.

Hmm... thing is, I'm not sure that was what I was trying to say!

imho some of my cycling photos (for a feeble first timer) are good to me, because of the fact that for some of the shots, you can't tell where the place is because of the lack of lampposts.

I wouldn't get too carried away. Clean backgrounds are a natural result from long telephotos and/or panning. They are relatively easy to obtain once you get the technical issues right. Thing is, when you get to a certain level, getting good backgrounds becomes all important, and usually this involves including some hint of where the sport is being played. Unless you shoot for a general stock agency, then that's a different kettle of fish.

you may not guess it's france because of the excessively harsh sunlight

Hopefully you know more about photography than you do about France.

see if i'm correct to think that my shots have progressed from worse-than-horrid to fairly acceptable.

I can't comment because I haven't seen your first shots.

i stand aligned with Jed; Jed, you ARE a sportsperson, after all. :thumbsup:

Err, what part of I am one such sports snapper who was pretty crap as a sportsperson did you not understand? :bsmilie: :bsmilie:

 

[Mr Fish]

Hmmm.. i've browsed through your SACA ITT pics and i feel that most of them aren't focused properly. Maybe there's something wrong with my eyes? Hmmmm

Is there a need for so many shots of similiar composition?
Is it because you were trying to sell prints to your friends so you neglected the stuff like focus, composition and the meaning of the pics?



Why not post pictures that you feel are very good to you, but wonder whether there is any way to improve?

Cos most of us would expect pictures posted here to be of decent quality? If you yourself know it's bad, why bother posting it? That's my 2 cents....

 

[togu]

 

[sehsuan]

actually, you didn't see things wrongly. i set to manual focus and left it at about 5 meters throughout. as the riders zipped by, from 85mm, i zoomed out 24mm, while snapping in continuous drive mode. that's the primary reason why for some sequence of shots, the shots' focus changes from on-on to off-on, or similar combinations. of course, that limits focussed pictures when the riders were about 5 meters from the lens - hence the necessity for me to use the continuous drive, imho.

the reason for the similiar "composition" for most of the later pictures is simple - better to have some pictures of the racers in albeit a similar look, rather than experimenting too much on my first try, and ending up with zero pictures for their reference at all.

one of the reasons i'm into sport photography is because of a friend of mine who treks into macritchie and the central catchment area to catch us in motion during our long runs, ranging from 10km to 35km. for such instances, better to have something to remember the run by, than overtly experimental shots that fail to turn up

indeed, the better pictures i've listed in my website under my photography section - but then again, they are subjective. the entire gallery for the race was put up so that at least people who didn't go for it, can see roughly what happened on that day - kind of similar to event photography, i guess.

 

[Mr Fish]

Oh i see... that explains the almost running IMG numbers...

Erm, not sure with the capabilities of 10D but would the Al Servo mode be good enough to get reasonably sharp focus for these kinda shots?

Cos i'll be going down to shoot at the national schools t&f in july. Wonder if the al servo of my d60 would do the trick. I normally prefocus on a desired point for my desired composition and wait for the subject before i snap once or twice... But that would mean less shots as i can't fire away brainlessly on the continuous drive mode and pick out the better ones later..hmmm

 

[sehsuan]

Originally posted by Mr Fish
Oh i see... that explains the almost running IMG numbers...

Erm, not sure with the capabilities of 10D but would the Al Servo mode be good enough to get reasonably sharp focus for these kinda shots?

Cos i'll be going down to shoot at the national schools t&f in july. Wonder if the al servo of my d60 would do the trick. I normally prefocus on a desired point for my desired composition and wait for the subject before i snap once or twice... But that would mean less shots as i can't fire away brainlessly on the continuous drive mode and pick out the better ones later..hmmm

the ai servo mode is alright, but i have yet to get a grip of its capabilities of speed-focussing at cyclists zipping by at speeds of 35+ kph to 40+kph at about 5 meters away where you can see them from the front-side view - would rather get some keeper shots rather than a much lesser number of it.

don't worry too much for T&F shots - the fastest event, the 100m, world champions run at "only" 37kph from a distance of at least 8 to 10 meters where you are allowed to stand - let alone speeds of students

 

[kelvinang]

Originally posted by sehsuan
actually, you didn't see things wrongly. i set to manual focus and left it at about 5 meters throughout. as the riders zipped by, from 85mm, i zoomed out 24mm, while snapping in continuous drive mode. that's the primary reason why for some sequence of shots, the shots' focus changes from on-on to off-on, or similar combinations. of course, that limits focussed pictures when the riders were about 5 meters from the lens - hence the necessity for me to use the continuous drive, imho.

Interesting... any particular reason why?

Of course, as the rider comes in closer to you, you should also change the focal plane to a closer distance! If the subject is not going to be in focus, why take the shot? The best way to do it while zooming in towards you is probably to activate auto-focusing.

Besides, I'm not so sure about the precision of the focal plane... if you set the focal plane to 5m away at the 85mm end, would it still be at 5m as you zoom back into the 24mm end?

With the EF-mount system and doing sports photography, personally I wouldn't bother using manual focusing except in cases where I hyperfocus. With the exception of relatively-wide aperture sizes, auto-focusing probably gives a decently sharp image. You might want to try to AF-lock on the subject and recompose quickly to take the shot. The chances of getting a sharper image is far higher than what you did in my opinion.

 

[Jed]

Originally posted by Mr Fish
Erm, not sure with the capabilities of 10D but would the Al Servo mode be good enough to get reasonably sharp focus for these kinda shots?

Nope. It's official, Canon's AF system is the pits! ;p

 

[mervlam]

Originally posted by Jed
Nope. It's official, Canon's AF system is the pits! ;p

Oh, come on Jed. It's not THAT bad!

Besides, I ever took reasonable shots of my hall's athletes for the 100m event during the Hall Olympiads in good weather with my EOS 30 on AI-Servo with a 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III lens (read - non USM!)

 

[mervlam]

Originally posted by Mr Fish
Erm, not sure with the capabilities of 10D but would the Al Servo mode be good enough to get reasonably sharp focus for these kinda shots?

No problem lah... jio me if you are going, and IF i'm free, that is.

 

[mervlam]

Originally posted by kelvinang
Besides, I'm not so sure about the precision of the focal plane... if you set the focal plane to 5m away at the 85mm end, would it still be at 5m as you zoom back into the 24mm end?

No. It isn't. Tested that with my EF 28-105mm before.

Originally posted by kelvinang
With the EF-mount system and doing sports photography, personally I wouldn't bother using manual focusing except in cases where I hyperfocus. With the exception of relatively-wide aperture sizes, auto-focusing probably gives a decently sharp image. You might want to try to AF-lock on the subject and recompose quickly to take the shot. The chances of getting a sharper image is far higher than what you did in my opinion.

Ditto... though it will be kind of hard to hyperfocus with a long telephoto.