tom kf4wol

Our Local High School Season begins August 21, 2014.

Got out this morning to their practice, and exercised the shutter on the D-600, using a Nikon 24-85 mm f3.5-4.5 in Aperture Mode.

As all the critics can tell I'm an old man amateur, picture taker..just out enjoying some fresh air, the zeal of these young men and wondering where in the Hell have the years gone by...

It has been 57 years ago since I was out popping the pads as a young man...

tom

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

great low angle close ups!

tom kf4wol

Thanks for Your comment, I am the first to admit my photos need lots of improvements. I just enjoy going out and playing with my Camera, my old man toy.

There are so many things to know and learn, I look at lots of Photos on UHH and admire the talent, creative, those with the skill to produce some awesome photos...

I keep trying to improve, I am age 74 and love getting out with the Local High school Kids..with the Camera and enjoying their Zeal for life...Kids of this Generation are much different than my Generation in High School.

Our Grandson that played High School Football and excelled in it making All Conference Wide Receiver has graduated and moved on. (We have another Grandson in the School who is a great Basketball Player, an Honor Student, so we too are looking forward to Basketball Season)

Yet, all of the kids on the Team have called and wanted to know if I could be out for some practice time and all of their Football Games.

It is a big thrilled to be called "pop's of the rap's" by all the Youth in our Community, invited to practices, games and their annual banquets.

I told the kids, I would try, I have a pretty bad back that does limit some of my mobility as I tire...Especially with the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 lens required for games under the lights at night.

Our local High School has an excellent Coach that really cares about the kids, puts academic first, then sports. He loves the fact that photos are taken of his kids, one of the Mom's post the photos on a High School Face Book page, where the kids can go see them and pull off the ones they wish to have. Coach tells us that the photos are big motivator's of both the Team and the Parents. We also do our best to get photos of the Band, Cheerleaders, ROTC Honor Guards, etc.

Hopefully the photos, will be good memories for these Young Men and Women when they look back on their High School Days.

tom

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Tom - Thanks for the update. This summer is now 31-years since I last put on the pads. Regarding mobility, can I suggest a monopod if you're not using one already? It will help with the weight of the heavier 70-200 lens. /paul

Wall-E Loc: Phoenix, AZ

On my monitor, they look a little overexposed, and a definite blue cast.

tom kf4wol

Thanks, Appreciate it...the kids bought me nice Manfrontte? with a ball head for my birthday in June....I have used it a couple of times trying to take some nesting storks.

I will sure take it with me for night football and the 70-200mm

Thanks appreciate it.

tom

tom kf4wol

Thanks, Yes I agree after paying a little more attention to them.

I shot them in Raw and just got Lightroom 5, some of the first that I have processed.

I had the Camera set in Cloudy White Balance, then in converting to jpeg used the 'eye dropper' in Lightroom to determine a better or what I thought would be a better White Balance....that ended up putting what I thought was too much green, as I recall the temp setting was 3800 Kelvin and tint +20...then I did not follow up and try to tune up exposure, etc.

As You can see I have a lot to learn....all the other Sports photo's I have always just taken out of the Camera except some cropping.

Erv had given me a tip to use a white coffee filter and pre-set white balance for Basketball in the various Gym lights in our local High Schools. I liked the way that worked.

I found some Lightroom Tutorials on the net, will watch them and see if I can learn to post process my out of camera mess to be more presentable.

Appreciate the good eye on blue tint, exposure, etc., at age 74, I find myself not seeing some of the colors as well as I should and not to make too many excuse's noticed the brightness on my Macbook Pro was only about 70%.

I still have them loaded in LR so will go back and tickle a few of them to see if I can remove the blue tint, adjust exposure, etc., as observed.

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment and your observations.

tom

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Tom - in Lightroom you can revisit the white balance and then output the files again (and again). Looking at the scene, I'd try daylight as well as simply AUTO from the camera. (Apologies if these are the Canon terms. I don't have a Nikon body on hand this evening.) The coffee filter is a good idea. I've been editing photos much of the afternoon from vacation 2 weeks ago. I use a credit card sized Whiball White Balance Reference. The hardest thing is to develop and maintain the habit of taking the card from my wallet and shooting a copy in the current light to click on later in LR5.

The monopod is another habit to form. Everyone has their own preferences. For me perfect focus is critical because that's not something you can fix later. Even with a VR lens, my results are better overall with the monopod than not. I don't want to start you on a GAS attack, but an L-bracket and quick replace plate makes the monopod (and tripod) so much more useful.