Soccer- oh how I am not talented at soccer

ISO: 1250  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 1250  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/250

          I have realized something recently. Soccer is not my sport. I am not good at shooting it. They are constantly on different sides of the field, and I don't know where to go, but I keep trying because I want to be good. At this game, I was trying to get pictures that hadn't been taken yet. Like these. (Well, at least I haven't seen either of these this year.) The first one is after half time when the girls were walking to the locker room. I saw Lauren jump on this girl's back so I walked over to get a picture of this. I like Lauren's face expression a lot and am pleased with this image.

        The second image is the varsity team warming up while the jv team was still playing. I went over there to try to get some different shots. I ended up with a lot of butt shots, especially when they were stretching. I liked this one cause the girls are laughing and having a good time. It is something different. I was using a 70-200mm and used a flash as well.

A different approach with basketball

ISO: 800  f/4.5  shutter speed: 1/250

ISO: 800  f/4.5 shutter speed: 1/250

           I was shooting jv girls basketball last Friday, and the flashes were set up on the other side of the gym. The first half of the game we could only get defense pictures, and the strobes were not set up correctly so I kept changing them trying to get it to look right, so while all this was going on I wan't getting very many defense pictures. When they called a time out I decided to try and get the coach talking to them since I had never done that before. I like the second picture, and I don't know if it is just because I have never gotten a picture of this or yea. This is with no flash, and I had to bring up the exposure a little bit in Lightroom. I could've slowed my shutter speed, I think I didn't because I was switching from flash to no flash a lot and really fast. I also don't know why my aperture is 4.5. Oh well, it worked, haha. I was using a 17-50mm lens for these with the 7D.

Dive

ISO: 1600  f/2.8  shutter speed: 1/250

          So I shot the swim/dive meet this past Saturday. I made this awful mistake again of leaving the camera in my car the night before so it was all foggy. Ugh. I never think about this until I am pulling up to the swim meet with my heat blasting cause I am so cold. Maybe one day I will remember this. So, my lens and camera were super foggy and we desperately needed dive pictures, which just happened to be first. I was frantically trying to defog my camera so I could get some dive, but it didn't want to cooperate with me so I didn't get very many good ones. This is one of my best dive pictures from the meet. I like that his head isn't down yet and he is still identifiable anddd that the diving board is in the picture so it's not just a floating person in a speedo. I was using a 17-50mm for this and was zoomed all the way to 50mm for this picture, I wish it was more bokahy. It's f/2.8 for crying out loud, give me some more depth of field. The Texarkana Gazette had a dive picture the next day that was really super good which made me really mad. At least it was inspiring to make me try harder and want better dive pictures next time.

2 degrees?

ISO: 200  f/5.0  shutter speed: 1/250

          This was for a newspaper assignment for a story about how you will now be able to graduate with 2 degrees. They wanted a silhouette so I set up the flash behind her. At first it was way too dark, so I kept bringing the flash power up. Before processing, you could see Woodsies face, so I had to use the brush tool and bring down the exposure on her, mainly her face. I thought this would be more exciting than it was, and it bothers me that you can tell there are wrinkles in the sheet, well paper. It is what it is though.

Robots Cars

ISO: 800  f/2.8  shutter speed: 1/160

          So, this engineering math class built these robot cars and then programmed them to go where they want. It was actually pretty neat, but at the same time boring to shoot. I was only in there for like 5 minutes, and  this was the only group on the ground playing with their robot. I focused on the girl on the right (I believe) so Heather (on left) is kind of blurry which I wish she wasn't. Because I am so close to them and zoomed in AND shooting at f/2.8, there was no way I was going to get them both crystal clear along with the robot. But I didn't have a flash, and I needed to be at f/2.8 so it wouldn't be underexposed so I (and yearbook) are just gonna have to deal with this. I do believe it is far better than having a dark image that you can't see. As far as processing goes, I straightened it up, and pulled the clarity up just a tad.

Selfies in art

ISO: 1000  f/2.8  shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 1000 f/2.8 shutter speed: 1/400

            I took these photos yesterday during yearbook. In smedley's room they were drawing self-portraits and that's what I was assigned to go shoot. In his room there are these lights underneath cabinets that are really bright and annoying. Last year, I shot something in that room and the lights were in almost all of my pictures and I hated processing them because those lights were so annoying and distracting. So, this time I was conscience of that while shooting and tried my very best to avoid them in most all of my pictures. They are not present in these two. Thank goodness. I did not use flash for either of these, even though I probably should have. I have just come to the conclusion that I am a natural lighting kind of person, so if I don't need on camera flash than I usually won't use it. I should have used a slower shutter speed for both of these because I had to bring the exposure up in Lightroom for them both. I think my shutter speed is so fast on the second one because my focus was on the piece of paper which is white, therefore the meter was a little off. Luckily, it wasn't too underexposed to where I couldn't fix it.

Woah nelly..half pipe

ISO: 200  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/640

ISO: 200  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/2000

ISO: 400  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/1250

            These are more pictures from Colorado and skiing/snowboarding and the half pipe. These are all kinda random but I liked them all for different reasons so I stuck them on here. The first one is just funny and I never knew skis were that flexible. The second one is one of my favorites. I think I'm going to duplicate it and crop it really horizontal. But I really like that you can see more than one guy in the air at the same time. Right before this happened, there were 2 on the left and 1 on the right in the air and that's how I thought to do this. I stood there and waited and waited and waited for that to happen again, but it never did. It only happened with 2 people so that's what I got. I am still pleased with the picture, though. And for the last picture, my family had all decided to meet at the bottom of the mountain, so when I got down there I saw Sim and Matt snapchating my cousin and took a picture without them ever knowing. Sneaky, sneaky. I love their face expressions in this picture and the fact that it is still kinda bokahy even though it is shot at f/5.6.

I wish I were that talented

ISO: 100  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/1250

ISO: 100  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/1250

ISO: 100  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/1250

ISO: 100  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/800

           So, I went to Colorado over Christmas break to go skiing, well actually snowboarding for me. Anyways, I brought my camera and one day I went to the half pipe to take pictures of the people there. It was crazy all the stuff they were doing. They make it look so easy too, and trust me, it's not. After I walked up to the half pipe (that was a workout) I had a hard time deciding where to stand. I ended up going in a lot of different places. The settings were really hard to set as well cause one side was shade and the other was sun and there was a big sun glare. I was constantly changing my shutter speed and there were lots of pictures that were too dark or too bright. I like the shadows in these pictures and the snow in the air (don't know how to word that). I had really fun taking these though and was pretty pleased with the outcome. I did my shutter speed at f/5.6 because it was SO bright and I just tried to zoom in so I would get some depth of field. There isn't a whole lot in these pictures, but in my other ones I have more depth of field. I am really glad that I decided to take my camera and shoot this. It twas much fun.

First Basketball of the Year

ISO: 1600  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 640  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/250

          So these were my first two basketball games of the year and I had a lot of fun with them. I love the lighting and how we have been setting that up this year. So much better than years past, and I don't have to worry about weighing my marginal cost and marginal balance with what I want my shutter speed and how properly exposed I want the image. (yes i just used terms from Microeconomics, learned them yesterday) Anyways, that's about the lighting. The first picture is from the freshman basketball, I was using the 5, that's why I couldn't do my shutter speed over 1/200. I liked this picture, and was really happy that he was in sharp focus. The facial expression of the guy is very intense which I liked, I wish the guy behind the ball in the background wasn't there, though. The second picture I was using a 7, and I find it really funny with where the ball is because it looks flat. I like the reflection on the floor. At this game, I was doing my shutter speed above 1/250 some for fun and to make the top of them not catch the flash to try and make them pop out more. I didn't try this until the very end of the game, though, so I didn't really get anything to put on here. I thought of it after I accidentally bumped it up and realized it, then I was like, well maybe that could be cool.