shot football for the very first time today. It was freeeeezing. C&C welcome. Also, how is bokeh defined? does it depend on your lens, or your aperture, or what? Because I see great bokeh on other photos, but on mine it's not very good. The background annoy me.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/5175/img0840copy8jx.jpg
I was lucky to get this one. They came barreling towards me, and crashed into the photographer next to me.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/498/img0864copy4ro.jpg

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/3886/img0888copy9li.jpg

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/1214/img0909copy8hl.jpg

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/3690/img0931copy4qg.jpg
I think this one could stand to have a tighter crop on the right. Thoughts?

fun one to end the post with

http://x12.putfile.com/11/32222484627.jpg

Yeah, it was COLD here too! You had one game, I had TWO and froze my butt off. IU was blown out by Purdue so we headed off early for the second game and got there just before kickoff. We had a stead wind and the temp dropped to the 40's before the game was done.

Anyway, your pictures.... Good stuff as usual. Your backgrounds look good...better than mine from yesterday! I wasn't happy with my backgrounds at all on most of my stuff. Some lenses are not good at background blurr, others are excellent. My Sigma 70-200 was excellent. So the lens has a lot too do with the background, but so does your camera settings...

More later, just got a call to move a trailer...easy money!

JS

Not bad, Livin. A couple of nitpicks, though. On the 4th picture, the player in the foreground is very distracting. It takes away from the quarterback. On the 3rd picture, you can't see the defensive player. Not bad if you're going to send that up to Maine, but I think it tells a bad story. On the fifth one, you could go for a crop thats a little looser. It feels almost too tight already.

Does UNH run the option as part of their offense?

yes, i have many shots of ricky santos without anyone, but I chose that shot because I think the extra player gives a feeling of depth and reference. It shows that there's other things going on while santos has the ball. the third shot I actually did send to maine, and they're probably going to run it. but I'm going to have to disagree on the crop. Any wider of a crop wouldn't really do anything except show more of the background players, and lessen the intensity of the photo because it's not a tight crop. I redid it though, to focus on the maine player. http://x12.putfile.com/11/32410321742.jpg (http://www.putfile.com)

Hey Liven,
Thats your first football game you have shot? I thought you shot some others...

JS

nope, i shot like two frames of film during my senior project, both of which consisted of no action, just shooting down the line. But that's all.

OK, well I thought you posted some football pics :).... for a first time you did very well! But considering the other sports you shoot it isn't too hard to get the timing down :)

JS

http://www.mainecampus.com/media/paper322/news/2005/11/21/MaineSports/Black.Bears.Fall.Short.Against.Unh-1112000.shtml

Those look nice in the story, Livin. Great job.

I think that extra player would add more depth and reference if there was more to the picture horizontally. If we could see a lineman blocking or a defensive player moving up to make a play, then I could see keeping the player in the foreground as it would add to the picture. But as it stands now, with your current crop, the player in the foreground distracts me from the player that you're trying to focus on. It draws my eyes away from the quarterback.

Sounds like an exciting game to shoot as well! Lots of scoring passing and running. A lot different than the defensive nail biter I was at Saturday night.

JS