I'm a soccer mom now. Officially a soccer mom. I drive a minivan, have 3.5 kids (I don't know about the .5 but it sounded fun...perhaps the .5 is the dog:) and I am now playing taxi shuttle to practices and games.
It's pretty cool to see my son in uniform and on the field. He is not a natural athlete, he's a pretty mellow kid...likes to read and play inside. But at his game last weekend, he scored 2 of their 4 goals.
This shot came out blurry for him, but focused on the ball. I wasn't sure about settings on the gray day with the movement. I tried sports mode for awhile and switched back to aperture priority. Perhaps I should have shot in auto? Or maybe I need to learn M? I did like the shot, even still, though. I kinda liked the focus on the ball.
I love the focus on the ball (in this case, I think the emphasis SHOULD be the ball) Soccer is really the game of choice with the children and grandchildren of my friends. Nicely captured sports moment!
Wow! 2 of the 4 goals is pretty good for a kid that's not really athletic, lol. I also like the 3.5 kids! Neat capture, I like how you've focused on the ball. I always have trouble shooting the kids sports. I normally shoot in manual but find I probably get better results with shutter priority.
Shutter speed setting??? I shoot sometimes in manual but in situations like this is more about capturing the action? Anyway technicialities aside that I don't know much about really. Love the .5 of a kid!! We are having the class mascot to stay this weekend that may be like having a .5 extra too!
Really awesome action shot! We had 5 kids in our family, but my mom had another child from another marriage who never lived with us...She was our half sister. When I was little and people asked how many kids were in my family I always answered 5 and half. I couldn't figre out why they always laughed.
Great action shot Amanda. Aperture priority is a good choice. I use it for the vast majority of my shots to control dof. In this case I would use Aperture priority and set the focus mode to AF-F (for moving subjects) and the AF- area mode to Normal area to use just one of the focal points, and move that to his face. I'm getting this info from my D7000 user's manual, but I'm pretty sure your D3000 has the same options. One other way to get his face and the ball both in focus would be to use a higher aperture number, narrower opening, but you would probably need to increase the ISO to be able to get a high enough shutter speed to stop action. The narrower aperture increases the dof and would put both ball and son in focus.
He definitely looks like a pro and must have been so chuffed with his goals. Over here it definitely seems to be a good thing if a boy can hold his own on the football pitch although my son wouldn't play because he couldn't bear the criticism if he did something wrong! Always was a sensitive soul! I like the focus on the ball, works for me!
@paulaw My son is sensitive, too. this league is great, though, as it is equally about developing character as it is about skill. Winning isn't as important as playing nice and having fun. It's just right for my boy. Thank you, Paula!!
Creative with the focus on the ball. In cloudy situations I set my WB to cloudy and I play around with exposure. I just shoot Manual - that way I can get it right on my own terms and its less frustrating! :-)
Cool shot, I really like the in-focus ball, slightly blurred player look! It shows the movement so well! Great shot, and congrats for earning the 'soccer mom' title! :-)
