FZ20 & Soccer Photography

[andyn]

I have had the opportunity to do some sports (boy's soccer) photography with the FZ20 and thought I'd share my experiences as there have been several discussions of this in the past.

My first caution is to expect a very low success rate. I'm only getting about 10-15%, even counting shots that I crop/adjust etc, and I've been shooting most weekends since the autumn. The viewfinder is truly awful - though adding an eyecup has proved very worthwhile. So I'm shooting hundreds of shots. This is partly because I've been shooting from positions in the stadium as I'm not an "official" photographer. A lot of blurring. But realistically I am getting more decent shots than I'd ever have managed with my old Nikon film gear. Of course maybe I would do better with an SLR and monster stablised lenses, but that's really not an option.

The best way to get the camera to set high shutter speeds is to opt for Aperture priority and set to F2.8. Depth of field is pretty good (sometimes too good) so the wide aperture doesn't give a problem. The only time you might need to change from this is if the light's too bright. I found the Sports mode made sub optimal decisions on auto ASA so don't use it.

400ASA is worth considering, even in fairly good light. There's so much movement in sport, especially at full telephoto, that a sharp shot at the higher speed, corrected for noise, will look better than a slightly blurred one. This is especially so at full telephoto, where blurring is a big issue. I accidentally left the speed setting at 400 for an entire match recently and I was surprised at the quality of the results. I suspect ASA400 performance is really the camera struggling to get enough light in low light situations. When used in good light the performance was much more acceptable - though still needed correction.

Combined with the viewfinder, the autofocus lag is a nightmare. Its fine for most uses but when you pick up speed it always seems to slow down! Can't make up my mind how good the Continuous Auto Focus is. It barely seems to make any difference - maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Bear in mind that white sports kit nearly always burns out if the light is bright. Its often worth underexposing a little to retain detail - and noise is normally well controlled in good light.

Get as big and fast an SD Card as you can. They're much cheaper now.

Always carry a spare battery.

Digital zoom does have its very occasional uses.....For my amateur purposes, a blurry shot of a boy ecstatic at having scored a goal on the other side of the stadium is very much better than no shot at all.

If you'd like to see the pictures, they are at http://andynorman.myphotoalbum.com

I hope these tips may be of use to someone.

Andy

[emalvick]

Could you possibly post or direct me to some of your shots in the daylight with the ASA400 settings? I'd especially like to perhaps see what they look like without noise correction and with noise correction.

I'm curious because I usually think of a 400 setting for low light, but when it came to film, I always used 400 speed film. So, I'd like to see how it looks in daylight.

Nice shots by the way, and thanks for the info.

Erik

[andyn]

All of the shots in the ESFA S.E.Final April 2005 album on the web site were taken at 400 ASA. If you look closely, there are blue seats in the stands behind the boys in many of the shots. For some reason they seemed most affected by noise (shadows I guess), and some remains after processing.

I think a couple of the shots are unprocessed. See if you can spot which they are! I can't remember which ones I left alone, though I'm pretty sure that the trophy photograph hasn't had noise reduction. I think you'll see if you click through to the 100% image although then you'll be seeing jpeg artefacts as well - and some pixelation on the cropped shots. Its OK for this kind of purpose but a bit dubious for "proper" photography!

[genece]

maybe I looked at the wrong photos but I downloaded 4 of them and blew them up, there is no noise, there are artifacts.. probably due to the resize or the compression but for pictures compressed that much they are pretty darn good. (if they are ISO400 they are very good)

This is one that I downloaded

[andyn]

thanks for uploading Gene. That picture is a crop of a little over a quarter frame, shot at 1/500 on f5.6 and, indeed at 400ASA. The basic image quality from the FZ20 is so good that for this kind of application - where the web version is pretty much the finished image - you can really take liberties. With a little help from Neat Image noise reduction.

[VT_Rotts]

genece, What am I looking for to spot the artifacts?

[andyn]

genece, What am I looking for to spot the artifacts?

You'll need to go to the web site the shot above was taken from (andynorman.myphotoalbum.com) and look at the second lot of football shots, which are the 400 ASA ones. Click through until you get the photo at "original size" (bigger than the screen) - you will see lots of horrors!

[VT_Rotts]

You'll need to go to the web site the shot above was taken from (andynorman.myphotoalbum.com) and look at the second lot of football shots, which are the 400 ASA ones. Click through until you get the photo at "original size" (bigger than the screen) - you will see lots of horrors!

I went to your site and looked at both albums of soccer (football :-), and none of them were any bigger than the others. Was I in the right place?

I like your Istanbul and India albums. Some great shots there.

Ed

[andyn]

I went to your site and looked at both albums of soccer (football :-), and none of them were any bigger than the others. Was I in the right place?

Ed
You were in the right place, just not doing the right things. If you go to the site, get into an album, click on a thumbnail to open the individual picture (goes to about 7"x5" on screen) then you click on that picture you get to the 100% sized shot at 70ppi (bigger than screen). Easy to do, tricky to explain.

Thanks for your kind comments on the other pictures.

Andy

[VT_Rotts]

You were in the right place, just not doing the right things. If you go to the site, get into an album, click on a thumbnail to open the individual picture (goes to about 7"x5" on screen) then you click on that picture you get to the 100% sized shot at 70ppi (bigger than screen). Easy to do, tricky to explain.

Thanks for your kind comments on the other pictures.

Andy

Got it now :-) So are the artifacts the spotches on the pictures?

Ed

[andyn]

Got it now :-) So are the artifacts the spotches on the pictures?

Ed
You got it. You will see noise in some of the shadows, where the dark colour appears blotchy - deep blues having some red appearing for instance. Then there are artefacts from the compression - which seems a bit like a random softening with some odd colour/light effects thrown in. At full size you'll also see some pixelation and possibly halo effects (worsened by compression), which are always there but not usually visible at normal viewing size.