Soccer Tournament C&C

[Warren Buchalter]

Here are some of the pics from todays soccer tournament. It was overcast and the shots were taken from 8:30-10 AM with a 30D 70-300 IS.

1

2

3

4

 

[Nill Toulme]

You did well Warren. Face/ball/action/contact — good work. I would crop 1 and 4 a little tighter, and increase the brightness and contrast a bit on all of them.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[Warren Buchalter]

Nill,

I didn't crop any tighter because I didn't want to cut off the head of one of the players in the frame even though they were not the focus of the action. The white balance was changed from auto to cloudy in pp.

If you have time, could you look at a few that I didn't post and let me know if you would pic any of them over the four I posted? Some of them didn't have a good backround etc. http://home.comcast.net/~wbuc/html/index.htm

Warren

 

[Asher Kelman]

I would crop 1 and 4 a little tighter, and increase the brightness and contrast a bit on all of them.
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I really like #4

However, the guy on the right is the main action character and we have only part of him! So while making the photograph more square adds impact, the full potential of all this drama is limited. Still, this is great action and I love it!

Against all good advice, I believe that generally framing closely is one of the most dangerous habits in photography! There is no need to be so obsessional when limbs are flying all over. Once one uses a camera with over 3MP one gets more and more freedom in framing. We can then harvest that shot with the best frame later.

If a limb or head is missing, there's nothing can do!

Asher

 

[Warren Buchalter]

Asher,

Here is the original Crop

Do you like this one better?

Here is number 1 cropped tighter

 

[Nill Toulme]

Yes I do think the alternative you offered to #4 is much more successful. And I would crop a little more still off the right side of #1 to make it more balanced. I would want to get rid of as much of that distracting fat referee as possible. ;-)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[Warren Buchalter]

Nil,

I cropped #1 tighter. Cutting into his hair and foot a little to make the picture more balanced.

I kind of liked the pulling on the shirts in the original #4 but the alternative doesn't have parital bodies in it.

Is it ok to crop into a persons hair?
Should try if possible to get there entire body in the shot and not cut off a limb (of course not at a joint)?

Warren

 

[Nill Toulme]

It's OK to trim the hair if necessary; it's not OK to cut off the foot as you've done here. But neither is required in this case. Here is how I would crop this shot, in (because it happens to work best in this case) a standard 2:3 ratio:

I also did a little bit of levels on it to brighten it slightly, a local contrast enhancement (USM 10/50/0) to add a little pop, and converted to sRGB (very important for web images).

There's nothing wrong with cutting off body parts (but as you say, not at the joint!) if it's necessary or contributes to a stronger image. But there's no need to do it for this shot (which is a very nice one IMO).

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net