Canon 300 F2.8L - Still have a lot to learn - HELP NEEDED

[smac]

I have owned this lens for about a year now and finally took it out of the house for the first time last weekend. I went down to the local football field and tried my skills (or lack thereof) on a NSW AFL match (East Coast Eagles vs Western Suburbs).

I took a heap of photos and was happy with a few, I used my 1.4 converter for some of the shots as the 300mm was still not enough on a full frame Canon 5D.

My Settings for the most part were:

1) IS off as i was using a tripod (don't have a monopod)
2) Shutter Priority with a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec
3) Focal length of 420mm
4) ISO 400
4) Metering mode - Pattern
5) AF mode AI Servo

Some of the challenges I faced included:

1) My complete lack of experience with this lens
2) Trying to nail the focus on the subject with a lot of players interfering (running in my line of focus etc)
3) Watching the game and forgetting to press the shutter
4) Not using a monopod (I was stuck in one position with my tripod)
5) Distracting background (cars in the car park)

Despite being a little bit disappointed, the club thought my photos were a big improvement on what they had seen in the past (must have been using a point and shoot). Anyway they were happy enough to include one of my photos on the West Coast Eagles website (the East Coast Eagles are linked to the West Coast Eagles).

Here's the link:
http://www.westcoasteagles.com.au/News/NewsArticle/tabid/7155/Default.aspx?newsId=66220

I have seen many sports images on this site which really seem to pop out of the page, sharper and better exposed than mine and I was hoping for some advice on how I can improve my sports shooting and my use of this great lens.

Here a a few images for critique:

[potato1]

Hey smac, congrats on getting on the West Coast site! You have some great shots. I use the same lens and it definitely takes a while to master it - I'm still learning myself! I suspect here the issue with making the players pop out of the background is simply to much depth of field? What apertures were you using?

[sirhc55]

I would try to get an advantage point that does not include cars etc. Even though the background is out of focus the shapes and colour take away from the players.

[jdear]

What sort of aperture was the camera choosing?

[Glen]

Stuart, congrats on getting an image used on the website. I love 3) Watching the game and forgetting to press the shutter ! No suggestions except don't stand across the field from the carpark.

[gstark]

Hi Stuart.

Congratulations on your new career choice.

As Chris suggests, look at what your backgrounds will be based upon where you're shooting from. You won't necessarily get the same shots, but the opportunities will be as many as they are varied.

Try to keep the lens open a little to through your backgrounds out of focus. F/5.6 should be plenty, but remember that this may affect the depth of your in-focus area of the image. It does take time to learn the lens, however.

Also watch your PP - these appear to be oversharpened. In the image that's published, look at the left leg of the guy in the black and white. In particular, the inside section of the thigh, where you might observe some noticeable haloing. When sharpening, try to back off from that point a little; the images should look a bit better as a result.

Cheers, and well done.

[DaveB]

Try to keep the lens open a little to through your backgrounds out of focus. F/5.6 should be plenty, but remember that this may affect the depth of your in-focus area of the image.

He's only stopped the lens down one stop (plus the stop lost in the 1.4x TC, that takes the f/2.8 lens to f/5.6).
Opening the lens up to f/4 (2.8 in the lens) would reduce the DOF _slightly_. At least with this lens there'll be little (if any) loss of quality wide open!

Selecting the backgrounds carefully will have the biggest effect, but something else you can do is to move as close as possible to the action. By making the players relatively closer to you, you'll make the background relatively further away.

The colour in these shots definitely looks over-saturated! Over-sharpened as well, but the colour hit me first.

[smac]

What sort of aperture was the camera choosing?

The camera was on shutter priority so the aperture varied, but most of the shots were around 5.6.

No suggestions except don't stand across the field from the carpark.

Thanks Glen, I didn't even notice the carpark when I was taking the photos, only when I saw the results. I guess I have to be more aware of my surrounding particularly the background!

Congratulations on your new career choice.

Thanks Gary, I don't know why everyone complains about how hard it is to to make money in photography. I go out to take photos for the first time in a year and I get published! They have, however, been a bit slow sending out the cheque!

The colour in these shots definitely looks over-saturated! Over-sharpened as well, but the colour hit me first.

Thanks Dave, funny thing was that they didn't look over saturated when I saw the results in Safari, but when I looked at them at work in Explorer and then at home with Firefox, they definately looked over saturated! I did the PP with Photoshop and when I went to save them for the WEB the photo changed dramatically looking over saturated, must be something to do with the colour space I was using or something else I struggle to understand fully.


Stuart