Sports tips and tricks?

[tbar23]

Are members open to providing feedback?
I’ve never attempted to shoot sports before, but I decided that my son’s sports provided enough of a push for me to purchase an RF100-500mm for an upcoming safari. I would love some advice and/or feedback on the shots I have taken.
I think I have settings reasonably dialed in: EOS Rp. Continuous AF. Max or near max aperture. Fast burst mode enabled. I read that it helps to save in Large JPEG rather than RAW. Not sure if SD card write speed is really that much of an issue or not. I’m in Av mode, so I let the camera pick ISO and shutter speed (no slower than 1/500).
I would welcome feedback on any of this, but more importantly, suggestions for help in composing and capturing interesting moments.
I have photographed two games (which can be seen here: My Portfolio). Focusing is difficult. Following the action is difficult. Figuring out where to stand is difficult.
I am sure that experience will help, but any advice anyone has (or specific suggestions based on photos) would be most welcome!
One more note - I didn’t do any editing, so happy to hear - “you should really do some editing” if that makes sense (with, perhaps, a little guidance as to what to adjust )

 

[tpatana]

Welcome.

Couple items I'd say: Av ok, M with auto-ISO better. If lighting doesn't change too much, M with fixed ISO is best. Find speed that works for your sport, most are 1/1000 or faster. My main sport I like 1/500, other sports 1/1000 or faster.

Composing and capturing needs both study and practice. Study great photos you see online and try to think where in the field it was shot and what lens length. Then go try to replicate. The more you know about the motion dynamics of the game, the easier it'll be to find those good spots.

I often choose person to follow, start AF on the person and then if/when something happens the AF should be spot on.

Try different locations and see how they work for the game situation.

Editing, yes, at minimum quick LR.

First find one typical from the set. Dial exposure, contrast, white, highlight, shadow and blacks as you want. Also WB, vibrance/saturation, sharpness and NR. If you want to be fancy, HSL dials for specific colors. Then apply settings to all the pics in the set.

Then go through them one by one for crop and level.

Done. Takes 5-10 seconds per picture after you have the settings dialed in. If lighting changes during the set, might need to adjust per picture basis too but usually fairly easy/fast if they are same ballpark.

 

[tbar23]

Very helpful. Thx @tpatana!

 

[Photo8]

Are members open to providing feedback?
I’ve never attempted to shoot sports before, but I decided that my son’s sports provided enough of a push for me to purchase an RF100-500mm for an upcoming safari. I would love some advice and/or feedback on the shots I have taken.
I think I have settings reasonably dialed in: EOS Rp. Continuous AF. Max or near max aperture. Fast burst mode enabled. I read that it helps to save in Large JPEG rather than RAW. Not sure if SD card write speed is really that much of an issue or not. I’m in Av mode, so I let the camera pick ISO and shutter speed (no slower than 1/500).
I would welcome feedback on any of this, but more importantly, suggestions for help in composing and capturing interesting moments.
I have photographed two games (which can be seen here: My Portfolio). Focusing is difficult. Following the action is difficult. Figuring out where to stand is difficult.
I am sure that experience will help, but any advice anyone has (or specific suggestions based on photos) would be most welcome!
One more note - I didn’t do any editing, so happy to hear - “you should really do some editing” if that makes sense (with, perhaps, a little guidance as to what to adjust )

 

[Bdunn62588]

Welcome.

Couple items I'd say: Av ok, M with auto-ISO better. If lighting doesn't change too much, M with fixed ISO is best. Find speed that works for your sport, most are 1/1000 or faster. My main sport I like 1/500, other sports 1/1000 or faster.

Composing and capturing needs both study and practice. Study great photos you see online and try to think where in the field it was shot and what lens length. Then go try to replicate. The more you know about the motion dynamics of the game, the easier it'll be to find those good spots.

I often choose person to follow, start AF on the person and then if/when something happens the AF should be spot on.

Try different locations and see how they work for the game situation.

Editing, yes, at minimum quick LR.

First find one typical from the set. Dial exposure, contrast, white, highlight, shadow and blacks as you want. Also WB, vibrance/saturation, sharpness and NR. If you want to be fancy, HSL dials for specific colors. Then apply settings to all the pics in the set.

Then go through them one by one for crop and level.

Done. Takes 5-10 seconds per picture after you have the settings dialed in. If lighting changes during the set, might need to adjust per picture basis too but usually fairly easy/fast if they are same ballpark.

This is all fantastic advice. I've mainly been doing soccer but the advice is solid through and through. My personal setup is an R3 with an original version EF 400 f2.8 non-is and an R6 with a RF 70-200 f2.8. I leave both wide open on aperture (2.8), 1/2000 is where I like to start, and then Auto ISO. This has served me EXTREMELY well so far. The editing piece is also solid, I have developed a "base" for the time of day, I usually import one photo, with the base layer and tweak it to liking, then I'll save the custom preset and then import the rest of the photos with the preset automatically applied. Finally, I do one pass to cull, another pass to tweak exposure and cropping.