Track Meets

[Tim_axe]

Here are a few pictures from my collection of track images this season. I thought I had more, but I couldn't find them. Not in any order, but I think these pictures are an improvement over my first couple of meets (more keepers, etc). If there is more to improve on, let me know. Cheers.

# 1

# 2

# 3

# 4

# 5 (Strongly backlit)

# 6

# 7

# 8

# 9

# 10

# 11

 

[fugu]

Nice shots. I like number 7 especially

 

[moosenuts]

All great shots - What percentage of the shots at each event turned out usable?

 

[jayjaya29]

I like numbers 7 and 9, they really show the enthusiasm (I know its spelt wrong, its been a long day...) the competitors have.

All the others are great as well.

 

[Tim_axe]

Thanks. My personal favorite is #1 with the upside down hurdle. After they went by and I saw the hurdle was 5ft from the line and upside down, I chimped to see if the hurdle was in the picture, and it turned out pretty sweetly. #7 is something I love trying because seeing the sand just frozen in the air is awesome. The athlete in #9 was perfect for panning, and on this corner-exit he actually looked up so I snapped away. He managed to lap everyone


moosenuts - I usually take between 100 - 200 pictures per meet, though recently I've taken less. (Because I started shooting RAW, and I can only hold 150 pictures). Out of the event pictures, I'd say 40% are good for my school's yearbook with perfect focus, and some others are of other schools but are good pictures also.

Out of those 150 or so pictures, about 20 of them are usually candids, and about 30 of them are for a theme I'm trying called "starts" -- these pictures are usually pre-race shoots of runners on blocks up through their take-off.

The remaining 100 or so pictures are of people running or competing in their events. I'd say out of those 100 I have about 1-2 pictures that I love because the moment was unexpected (ie, #1). Out of the rest, I'd say that I only really like 10% of them "out of the camera" and that I can probably have a 50% keeper ratio with some cropping. The rest usually have some limb cropped off because the runner came too close, or were from a 2 frame press-depress-press-depress burst and the focus didn't update fast enough (mainly long/tripple jumpers since I try to get them on take-off/air and when they land), and some are just dull and boring "missed the moment and no emotion" kind of shots.

I do my best to only push the shutter when the time is ripe, but it gets frustrating after composing the scene and never actually taking the picture because the guesture isn't right, etc so I'm slowly learning to just shoot first and chimp later

 

[HorsePunchKid]

Number 7 is excellent. I think 8 and 10 could be great, but they do not leave enough space in the direction of motion (compare with 9, which is quite good in this respect). If you're using a zoom, you might consider not filling the frame quite so much, so that you have some room to adjust later.

 

[Tim_axe]

Thanks HPK -- there really isn't much space in the direction those people are facing. Just one of the difficulties when shooting portrait orientation with a prime lens and trying to keep that focus-point over the subject. I'm affraid it'll be difficult to fix but I'll remember it when I'm out taking pictures. Thanks