Tipp Hurling – HolyCross v Upperchurch

• Orange_juice

  Participant

  May 29, 2008 at 8:01 pm

  Took this a couple of weeks ago, the best of a few I took, it was hard to get it spot on…
  C&C

  OJ

  
  MartinOC

  Participant

  May 31, 2008 at 5:22 am

  Hi OJ,

  You got the moment all right, and the focus point.
  But the action gets lost in the background. I’m don’t have any experience in this kind of photography, so you can take what I say any way you want.
  I guess you have to find your shooting position with care, well before the action, so you can get the background as clutter free as possible.
  Also shooting “wide open” would blur the background more, but there is a lot of distraction here to blur out, particularly the cars.

  Watch for the tips of the hurleys too. Perhaps if the sliotar is coming straight down, flipping to vertical might match the action better.
  I would say, not being a quick thinker, that field sports photography is requires a lot of preparation, 99% of the decisions are had in advance.
  And also luck, it would be great if they had obliged and faced your way.

  I haven’t seen a hurling match in ages.

  Martin
  Expresbro

  Participant

  May 31, 2008 at 12:07 pm

  As Martin has already said Oj, for this kind of shot you really do need to try and separate the action from the background…

  Not always the easiest thing to achieve…which is why Sports photography is a difficult discipline at the best of times. Is probably why you see most Pro sports shooters..and serious amateurs lugging big mother of lenses with long range and large apertures.

  But like Martin said, even with relatively low grade gear you can do a lot to improve your own shots by choosing a good position with as little background clutter and getting in as tight as you can on the action, which to me in this shot would be the very centre with the four players bundled together.

  I know you can crop afterwards but then you’ll lose a lot of image quality as well.

  I’ve never shot a hurling match myself and am looking forward to giving it a go. I’d imagine it’s one of the more difficult games to get right due to the speed it’s played at, but rewarding when you do get it spot on.

  Robbie
  8)
  Orange_juice

  Participant

  June 3, 2008 at 4:15 pm

  thanks for Comments Guys,

  First time ever trying any sort of sports photography.
  A friend said he was going to a game when I was down the country and I had the camera with me, so I said why not give it a go.

  Very hard to find a position that doesn’t have a bit of background in that particular game.
  Also only have a 70-300mm 5.6f, I can see why the pro have the really big guns out for it. guess I could blur a bit more with software though.

  It really is so hard to get the action, the ball moves so quick in the game, I just got lucky to an extent with this one.

  OJ