Any suggestions?

[dawgs712]

http://www.friendlyfirepaintball.com/grey_site/photos.htm

I work at Friendly Fire and take photographs of the Speedball and Recball. The link above is the page for the pictures. Click on September 20th. There are 6 pages of them, mostly speedball. If anyone has any suggestions on how to take better pictures (we use a digital camera if it matters) or just wants to comment on them, Id appreciate it. Thanks.

[PBfreak01]

Give me the camera and I'll take them for you :D

But seriously, there really isn't a better way to take pictures with a digital camera. If you're going for lot's of control, you should be using a SLR (single lens reflex...I explain).

And SLR is pretty much built like a periscope with two views...one for you, and then one for the camera. It works like this:

1: The shutter is closed in front of the film. You have a view of what is currently in the lens' FOV.

2: You press the shutter release, and it snaps up in front of your view, allowing the film to see what you saw (following me?).

3: The shutter returns to it's original position, protecting the film from exposure, and allowing you to see again.

The reason SLR's are so good is that you have a huge variety of lens' to choose from, you can make double exposures (they're really cool, but take a whole lot of practice to get right. Trust me), attach all kinds of filters (infrared, flourescent, etc.), and you get negatives (they're great, especially if you have negative paper....then you can develope the negatives in the negative (reversed color). The disadvantage is that you can only take large pictures quickly...you have to zoom manually. You also need a great deal of practice to take good photos with a SLR.

[dawgs712]

i was talking more like angles amnd stuff liek that, like what is more visually pleasing

[PBfreak01]

Well, there really isn't much you can do in the way of angles...I mean, the girls don't wear skirts when they play.....oh, those angles...........My bad.

Seriously, though. There isn't anything you can do short of getting in the players face a la The Blair Witch Project. And I don't think they'll like that too much.

[Sladerson]

Focus more on the players while they are exchanging fire with another player.

[xIrish]

you could try following a certain player and taking pictures--eventually he'll run into some action.

and as for angles, are there any high-up positions where you can take an Overview shot of the entire game?

[Flamethrower]

More bunkering pics. Always a favorite.

[dawgs712]

i wish, i wanted them to build a platform but theres no room.


there is also a 1 secodn-ish, i say ish cuz it varies, delay on the camera, so getting someone in mid move or off the break is hard

[~BruceLee38~]

the photos are good. yeah the only way to really take better pictures is get a better camera. your angles and stuff are pretty good. try to get more shots of paintballs expolding on people. those are cool

[Havoc Hunter]

Nice pics. Good Quality. A couple cool things would be:

1) Bunker Shots
2) Get pics over the shoulder of a player shooting at another player
3) Lie on your back and take shots up at the player shooting or getting lit up.


Ive taken a camera on the field before in the middle of a game and run around, its a blast

[Magnus55]

You have a lot of mid range face level shots. Try getting(as someone already suggested) lower shots from crouching or lying positions. It makes the players you're snapping appear bigger and more menacing. I know you wanted to build a platform and couldn't, but how about using a step ladder? Just have someone hold it at the bottom and you'll be able to get nice overhead shots showing players and angles most photographers don't normally get. :)

[teufelhunden]

Originally posted by dawgs712
there is also a 1 secodn-ish, i say ish cuz it varies, delay on the camera, so getting someone in mid move or off the break is hard

I'm in the digicam market, and I know that on most of them, that delay can be brought to nearly nothing. Check your manual, and set it in sports/fast action mode, if it has one.

[dawgs712]

thanks everybody, i have tried getting behind players and getting their gun in the pic and their target bunker/player, but i got shot in the hand, alsmot broke the camera.

but getting on the ground seems like it would work pretty good, there is also a hill outside the netting, illtry that too.

thanks again guys

[dawgs712]

http://www.friendlyfirepaintball.com/grey_site/photos.htm

check out the oens from september 27th, i put a ladder up next to the field and got some cool shots, one is from directly above a kid so that u can actually see the top of the netting. there are some rpetty cool shots. i also got behind the 50 and tried taking pictures from on my back, but i got shot in the mask lense. missed the camera by about inch and half, so my boss who owns the camera was like no more of that.

the ones on page 1 wre all taken from above
-3 down in middle row is a bunkering, fat guy bunkered littel kid.
-4 down right side is off break, pretty cool pic

page 2 has some rec ball in it, speedball pics were from ground
-3 down on elft side is a pretty cool cross field shot

page 3 has the 3 best pictures imo
-the 3 spedball pictures are of the same player, in one he took the logs next to 50 and cleared the whoel field from there
-another he is moving off the break, nice action shot
- in the other one he was last man against 2 other. guy at orange tombstone near white curtain is shooting at homeplate where he thought that last guy was. last guy moved around when he saw he was getting advanced on and took out guy at tombstone. very nice move. he lsot the game but nice move nonetheless.

[pEnNyWiSdOm225]

They look pretty good.

[PBfreak01]

Well, like I said before, if you're looking for very interesting shots, buy an SLR. You can vary the shutter speed anywhere from [open until shutter button is released], 1 second, to 1/1000 of a second (moving in increments half the size of the last one). When you keep the shutter open longer, it can produce a very nice (and sometimes very ugly) blur effect as the subject moves; if you have it set to a very short exposure, you can make something appear frozen in mid air. You can buy numerous lens filters that make some colors stand out more and others recede. You can [purposefully] create double exposures (which is something that is unique to an SLR)...A double exposure, for those who don't know, is when two seprate images appear on the same frame.

It's an expensive investment (good SLR's range from $200-$500), but you can vary the lens you use, so one day you can be shooting absurdly close (1 foot or less), and the next you can take photos from hundreds of feet away. You may also directly vary the speed of the film, rather then the camera selecting it for you, you can set it to, say, 200, when it is really 400.

If you're not interested in creating double exposures, my reccomendation is to buy a motorized camera...otherwise you'll miss many good shots winding the film. And make sure you get one with a removable flash...an integrated flash is extremely expensive to replace if it breaks.

[dawgs712]

yeah im just the ref they chose totake pictures cuz im the only one can do it, and ref, and not break the camera, and i think i take pretty godo pictures. sonot really interested in droppin that much on a camera, but thanks fro the tips;)

[NSstrat]

Im not a photographer, but a paintball enthusiast. A great shot that is fairly rare in paintball pics is where you can see the pic of the guys shooting AND the person there going for. I dont know if ive ever seen that.
Or an over view of the game was said b4 that would be very cool because you can see all the different mini scirmishes going on...

Dbizzle

[w0rr]

superman dives and bunkereds are my favorite pics to see

[hybrid-sniper]

i like actions shots, like people being bunkered, pretty painful looking shots, extra spectacular bunkering, like people flying over bunkers (spose that would be the superman like what wOrr said).

[ythpstr2000]

Originally posted by PBfreak01
Well, like I said before, if you're looking for very interesting shots, buy an SLR. You can vary the shutter speed anywhere from [open until shutter button is released], 1 second, to 1/1000 of a second (moving in increments half the size of the last one). When you keep the shutter open longer, it can produce a very nice (and sometimes very ugly) blur effect as the subject moves; if you have it set to a very short exposure, you can make something appear frozen in mid air. You can buy numerous lens filters that make some colors stand out more and others recede. You can [purposefully] create double exposures (which is something that is unique to an SLR)...A double exposure, for those who don't know, is when two seprate images appear on the same frame.

It's an expensive investment (good SLR's range from $200-$500), but you can vary the lens you use, so one day you can be shooting absurdly close (1 foot or less), and the next you can take photos from hundreds of feet away. You may also directly vary the speed of the film, rather then the camera selecting it for you, you can set it to, say, 200, when it is really 400.

If you're not interested in creating double exposures, my reccomendation is to buy a motorized camera...otherwise you'll miss many good shots winding the film. And make sure you get one with a removable flash...an integrated flash is extremely expensive to replace if it breaks.

On my digital I can adjust shutter speed and everything else to. Just got to know how to do it...translated...ask me not my wife. Its real simple though and I can get the same blur effect and all.