Halloween at Disneyland

My daughter has been asking to go to Disneyland during the Halloween season. Normally I try to go during the Christmas season, but with their ticket prices we don't go as often as I'd like to. So this Saturday my wife, daughter, and I went to spend the day at Disneyland. Now I didn't want to be limited with just one park so I bought us the park-hoppers at $94 a pop. OMG, $288 for three of us to just get into Disneyland. It may be the "Happiest Place on Earth" for kids, but as for me, it's a killer.

With that said I do love going there, even though I don't spend as much time on the rides as I used to. I guess it's a sign of getting old when I'm just content with walking around and enjoying the shops and people.

I did bring my camera with the intentions to take paticular shots that I can later run through my LucisArts program and have some fun. So here are some shots for the days outing. Hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed the day with the wife and daughter.

This first shot was taken just outside the Haunted Mansion.

This is the Tarzan Tree house

These next two are from the parade

This last one is of Sally from "Nightmare Before Christmas". My daughter really wanted a picture with her but the line was too long, so she settled for some pictures.

Friday Night Lights "Lakewood Varsity vs Jordan"

This was a tough game to watch and photograph as it appeared that our boys highly underestimated Jordan. Jordan had and shown a desire to play hard and win, while Lakewood appeared to just give up. They did make a strong attempt in the 4th quarter to come back, but it was too little too late with the Jordan Panthers winning 24-12.

I am out there to capture Lakewood in action and in the process I will often take pictures of the opposing team. I must say that Jordan's quarterback was one of the better athlete's I'd had the pleasure to watching and shooting. I can see this kid playing college and doing very well.

I give a lot of advice and help those who are just starting out with shooting sports action, but this post will show that I struggle with lighting like most of you who read my blog. During the day under pretty much any conditions I have a good grasp as to my lighting needs. I run into problems when the sun goes down and the lights are turned on.

This game was one filled with problems. In my last "Friday Night Lights" post I mentioned that I bought a flash extender, which allowed me to shoot at lower ISO's and faster shutter speeds. Well for this game I started out with the same setting I used last week. Camera set to manual mode at f/2.8, ISO 800, and a shutter of 1/400. After looking at a few shots I just wasn't happy with how my flash was working. The pictures seem darker and apeeared as if the flash was only exposing a part of the picture. So I spent a lot of time adjusting my flash settings until I was getting great light at a lower ISO and faster shutter speeds, but I was also getting harsh shadows.

Notice in this first group of shots the background can been seen and how the lighting appears uneven, especially in the first shot. Then you'll see the second group of shots and notice how the background is very dark with harsh shadows along the right side of the athlete.

So what this game did for me is show that I am always learning and really need to have a better understanding of my flash and it's settings. So if you follow my posts, get your manual out of their hiding spots and open them up. Understand the settings of your camera and flash.

These following shots were taken at ISO 640 with a shutter speed of 1/500. Now the players are nice and bright with little, if no blur, but there is a dark shadow along the right side of the athlete.

Lakewood JV Football vs Jordan

It's been a few weeks since I've been out to a JV game so I was looking forward to capturing some of the action. The JV has had a great season so far and I didn't expect anything less from them for this game. They came out ready to play and put some points on the board rather quickly. It was a great game to watch and shoot.

Let me start with some fun stuff.

The below shot is a perfect example of positioning and background. I positioned myself near the goal posts at the end zone to get some wide shots of the line. What I was looking for was a shot of the full back running towards me through a hole in the offensive line. Well that's not what I got. The Quarterback was getting pressured by the defense and ran out of the pocket towards the sideline while being pursued. I followed the the quarterback and his pursuer taking several shots. As they got to the sideline the quarterback turned and headed for the scrimmage line. It was during this when I shot off a series of shots, this being one of them. What I'm demonstrating with this shot is how background can take away from the shot. Take a look at the shot and you'll see some nice action. Both players are in the air as if floating. The quarterback has the ball looking for a receiver and his pursuer is reaching out as far as he can to get a piece of the quarterback. Notice the jersey in his hand. But what's taking away from this shot is the background. The action somewhat get lost within the background. So when shooting the action, be aware of your background and your positioning.

There are a few shots I try to get of the quarterback and one of them is the sack or near sack. In this shot I positioned myself just off the scrimmage line (offense side) to get some shots of the QB. Our team (red / white) was doing great and I wasn't planning on him getting sacked, well then again I don't think he did either. Needless to say I had my sights on the QB waiting for him to make a play when the hit came. He did get the pass off, which was completed. The point I'm trying to make here is that you can put yourself in the right position for the perfect shot, which doesn't come. On the other hand you can put yourself in the right position for a nice standard shot and then the big one happens. Having the right positioning and knowing when to hit the trigger can give you big action shots.

Just wanted to share these two series of some high flying receptions.

Youth Soccer - Girls U10

When I post my blog entries here I tend to post a lot of pictures and after time you'll see similar pictures posted, just different teams. So I am going to try and refran from this and post only those that stand out and offer examples on positioning and other rules of sports action photography.

So with tha t said I will start with the below picture. As I've said before

In the original shot, which is straight out of the camera (SOOC), I cut off the goalies foot. Now it wasn't really a bad picture, but then again it wasn't the best. So when I end up with shots like this I will take a closer look at them and determine if they can be saved with a creative crop. I find that tight crops work very well with action shots. That is as long as the elements of action are there. In this shot I have the ball in the picture, have a decent facial expression, and a clear background. So here is my save on the above picture.

I just liked the look of these two shots

Friday Night Lights "Lakewood Varsity vs Cabrillo"

After a tough loss against Poly last week our varsity players needed to get back on track and play some serious football. Well this week they played against Cabrillo. They had a slow start but once Cabrillo showed that they will score if given the chance, our boys got their game together and pushed forward even harder eventually winning 30-8.

I did try something new and different for this game, but you'll have to wait until the end of the post to see what I did (used). Let me say this though, I was very pleased with this new tool and think it will give more people the opportunity to shoot night games.

"Sportrait"

Some nice tight warm-up shots.

"The Action"

The Flash X-Tender

While photographing the Lakewood varsity vs Poly game last week my friend, whom I shoot the Lakewood games with, and I noticed that the local Staff Photographer for the Long Beach Press Telegram, Scott Smeltzer, was using a new flash extender on his flash. We learned that this new extender will extend the power and distance of your flash. It uses a magnifying lens, which is extended out in front of the flash. Scott was able to shoot that game with his ISO set at 800 and a shutter of 1/250. Now I normally have my camera set to ISO 3200 with a shutter speed of 1/320 - 1/400. So the following day my friend ordered two of them from B&Hphotovideo and we tried them out during this game.

Basically this extender is two light alloy pieces that velcro to your flash. Then a magnifying lens is attached by velco to the end of the allow pieces. It is also recommended that this item not be used with anything less than a 300mm lens.