How do I?

[Ben_Wearden]

Heyy,
I do Sport's Photography for a Professional Football team called PNE. I covered my first Professional game yesterday after covering numerous Youth games for the club.
As I was mixing with Professional Sports Photographer's who work for Agency's such as FIFA, I noticed a few suttle differenced between my picture's and theirs.

Where are my picture's only have slight blurring behind the subject, The whole background for them was blurred into a sea of colours, making the subject appear more crisp and defined.

How would I do that?
Is it the Aperture?
If so, How would I change my A200's setting to get familiar results.

Thanks,
Ben.

[TimF]

What lenses were you and, as importantly, they using. I'd strongly suspect it's a simple matter of maximum aperture available.

If you were using a zoom lens with a maximum of say f/5.6 at the end you were shooting at, and they were using prime lenses of f/2.8 maximum, that would make all the difference; not just in blurring the background but also in giving them a two stop shutter speed advantage at the same ISO.

[Ben_Wearden]

The Photographer sat next to me was using this Nikon lens that resembled a Telescope. It was a 55mm-200mm Zoom lens.
I was using a Sony 75-300mm Zoom lens. F.4.5 - 5.6

[AlexMonro]

Hmm... The Nikon 55-200 (VR & non-VR) is only f/4-5.6 - similar to your lens. You sure it wasn't the 70-200 f/2.8 VR, which I would say looks more like a telescope?

However, at 200mm & f/2.8, that gives a DoF of around 7.7m when focussed at 50m. Your longer 300mm focal length actually gives less DoF, about 6.8m, at full zoom and your f/5.6 max aperture. Even at 200mm, you should still only get about 15m DoF at f/5.6.

Try using the longest focal length & the widest aperture available - though obviously, for composition / framing, you may not always want 300mm!

For more on depth of field, look at Cambridge in Colour

[Ben_Wearden]

Hmm... The Nikon 55-200 (VR & non-VR) is only f/4-5.6 - similar to your lens. You sure it wasn't the 70-200 f/2.8 VR, which I would say looks more like a telescope?

However, at 200mm & f/2.8, that gives a DoF of around 7.7m when focussed at 50m. Your longer 300mm focal length actually gives less DoF, about 6.8m, at full zoom and your f/5.6 max aperture. Even at 200mm, you should still only get about 15m DoF at f/5.6.

Try using the longest focal length & the widest aperture available - though obviously, for composition / framing, you may not always want 300mm!

For more on depth of field, look at Cambridge in Colour

Hmm.. Might well of been. The outer casing of the lens, especially the hood of the lens looked like it was made out of Carbon fibre (Or it had the effect). It looked like something that should be attached to the Hubble Space Telescope. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'll try my best. I got some very nice shot's though. Looking through them all before, I realised that some did have the Subject really sharp and the background just a sea of colours.
Looking to buy a Laptop soon so I can take it along to Matches and check my picture's on the spot!

Actually.. should I buy a new Telezoom lens with a lower Aperture value or a new laptop? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Thanks,
Ben.

[TimF]

Just seen a link to this shooting football masterclass. Don't be put off by the gasfires!

[Fen]

Looking to buy a Laptop soon so I can take it along to Matches and check my picture's on the spot!

Problem then... you'll be looking at the photos on the laptop and missing the photo-ops on the field

[TimF]

Has half-time been abolished then?

[spinno]

Looking to buy a Laptop soon so I can take it along to Matches and check my picture's on the spot!

Problem then... you'll be looking at the photos on the laptop and missing the photo-ops on the field

buy a laptop with a built in webcam.....

[Ben_Wearden]

Looking to buy a Laptop soon so I can take it along to Matches and check my picture's on the spot!

Problem then... you'll be looking at the photos on the laptop and missing the photo-ops on the field

I mean at half-time or pre-match. Check my pictures on the
Laptop to find any problems that i cannot see on the LCD Screen or simply check Over-exposure, Under-exposure etc.

[Bawbee]

I mean at half-time or pre-match. Check my pictures on the
Laptop to find any problems that i cannot see on the LCD Screen or simply check Over-exposure, Under-exposure etc.

Best to watch that your laptop and photographic equipment doesn't get damaged by a loose ball or, even worse, a sliding tackle from a hairy-arsed defender

Stick with the basics and review your images at home after the match. You can always make corrections at the next match.

[john_g]

Looking to buy a Laptop soon so I can take it along to Matches and check my picture's on the spot!

Problem then... you'll be looking at the photos on the laptop and missing the photo-ops on the field

I mean at half-time or pre-match. Check my pictures on the
Laptop to find any problems that i cannot see on the LCD Screen or simply check Over-exposure, Under-exposure etc.

Whilst many pro photographers carry laptops with them nowadays, I can't think that, for action photography, anyone will be using the laptop to check their photos on the fly. The main use is to prepare the images for publication and then transmit them back to the office.

To check for over/under exposure, use your camera's histogram and, if you find it helpful, the camera's over/under exposure warnings. To check sharpness, just zoom in on the camera's preview. I think that to do anything more than this (and maybe even this) would risk missing photographic opportunities. And if all you're going to do is check the images after the match, then you're not going to be able to re-shoot them anyway, so why lug even more kit around with you? If you're going to do a lot of this type of photography, I'd bet a monopod would improve your pictures far more than a laptop - and be a lot, lot cheaper.