Football game , high school

[alfa147x]

Well I'm a high school student so these games fascinate me, this is what went down:
I took my Rebal XTI and my 28 - 90 lens and a 75-300 lens.

The lens's were fine till the sun when down then shutter speed had to come down and things went horrible...
Well this other photographer saw my struggling and after half-time he offered me his Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: (to use not keep ) it was on a mono-pod I almost died
I started of with a cheap-o lens and the end of the night i was using a $4000 lens :camera:

Sorry if i sound like I'm showing of but thats not the intention. Any tips for this friday?


well here are the pictures: www.inkedpaper.com

Thanks!

 

[troytime]

nice photos man, good job

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Ah, brings back memories of when I went to a night football game with my XT and 50-500mm. The 50-500mm is by no means a bright lens... shots were noisy and lacked tack sharpness. Freezing motion was out of the question. I'd love to test drive the 300mm f/2.8. The thing must be a monster.

Ermm... what are you doing this Friday?

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: alfa147x
Well I'm a high school student so these games fascinate me, this is what went down:
I took my Rebal XTI and my 28 - 90 lens and a 75-300 lens.

The lens's were fine till the sun when down then shutter speed had to come down and things went horrible...
Well this other photographer saw my struggling and after half-time he offered me his Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: (to use not keep ) it was on a mono-pod I almost died
I started of with a cheap-o lens and the end of the night i was using a $4000 lens :camera:

Sorry if i sound like I'm showing of but thats not the intention. Any tips for this friday?


well here are the pictures: www.inkedpaper.com

Thanks!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

North Gwinnett! YOU SUCK..... Just Kidding. You guys are going to kill us on Friday. All your pictures will need to be burned.

/A Collins Hill Dad.


Are you having problems with noise or slow focus? Light is need for focus and some of the slower AFs get killed by lower light. You may have to work on your manual focusing skills to compensate. One of the Directors of Photography I heard talk at Cinegear a couple of years ago still sits next to the freeway ramp near Sunset Blvd and practices manual zoom and focus to make sure he has it right (film).

If it is focus, even with AF, it is a good skill to keep up with.

Have fun at the game. Going to skip it as your school is such a PITA to park at for this game.

 

[Jawo]

Nice pictures! the 300mm lens looks awesome...I haven't had much of your luck yet....

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
Ah, brings back memories of when I went to a night football game with my XT and 50-500mm. The 50-500mm is by no means a bright lens... shots were noisy and lacked tack sharpness. Freezing motion was out of the question. I'd love to test drive the 300mm f/2.8. The thing must be a monster.

Ermm... what are you doing this Friday?

another football game!

we are playing gsellis team!

 

[soydios]

Nice shots. Gawd, how I would love to get my hands on a 70-200/2.8 or a 300/2.8.

Question: what settings did you use for those fireworks shots? They're really nice.

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: soydios
Nice shots. Gawd, how I would love to get my hands on a 70-200/2.8 or a 300/2.8.

Question: what settings did you use for those fireworks shots? They're really nice.

Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/32
Focal Length: 70 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

also used a time shutter

if you ever want to find out, click on my picture and it'll take you to a flickr page there down on the lower right you will see something saying:
Taken with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi.
More properties

Click on more properties

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: alfa147x
Well I'm a high school student so these games fascinate me, this is what went down:
I took my Rebal XTI and my 28 - 90 lens and a 75-300 lens.

The lens's were fine till the sun when down then shutter speed had to come down and things went horrible...
Well this other photographer saw my struggling and after half-time he offered me his Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: (to use not keep ) it was on a mono-pod I almost died
I started of with a cheap-o lens and the end of the night i was using a $4000 lens :camera:

Sorry if i sound like I'm showing of but thats not the intention. Any tips for this friday?


well here are the pictures: www.inkedpaper.com

Thanks!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

North Gwinnett! YOU SUCK..... Just Kidding. You guys are going to kill us on Friday. All your pictures will need to be burned.

/A Collins Hill Dad.


Are you having problems with noise or slow focus? Light is need for focus and some of the slower AFs get killed by lower light. You may have to work on your manual focusing skills to compensate. One of the Directors of Photography I heard talk at Cinegear a couple of years ago still sits next to the freeway ramp near Sunset Blvd and practices manual zoom and focus to make sure he has it right (film).

If it is focus, even with AF, it is a good skill to keep up with.

Have fun at the game. Going to skip it as your school is such a PITA to park at for this game.

I love games, It was funny he told me since i loose my perception of depth while looking into the camera i should lsintne for footsteps and it works!


you should seriously come have fun, yeah parking sucks @ss but if you get their like 30 minutes before the game you can park at the church near the field fine. Hope to meet a fellow AT'er I'll be the Indian kid on the field with my camera :camera:

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: alfa147x
I love games, It was funny he told me since i loose my perception of depth while looking into the camera i should lsintne for footsteps and it works!

you should seriously come have fun, yeah parking sucks @ss but if you get their like 30 minutes before the game you can park at the church near the field fine. Hope to meet a fellow AT'er I'll be the Indian kid on the field with my camera :camera:

Try working on shooting with both eyes open. This helps with the footstep issue and gives you better tracking as you pickup on out of frame influences before you need to adjust for them in frame. It is a skill to master, so do not expect immediate results.

We have parked by Suwanee Dam Rd all the way down once and at the tennis courts last time. Plus, a few of your fellow students are real butt wipes, so just not worth the hassle. Plus more, I live with girls, so I can never be on time again. EVER. We finally left at 6:40 for the 7:00 game against Mill Creek this week. My 10th grader seems to think that schedules are for other people

Oh, and was that your monopod or a borrowed one? I shot sideline video with a monopod myself. Too dangerous to you or the players to use a tripod (the video students are going to lose a camera this year...). As you discovered, with a big lens, a monopod is great for getting unblurry shots. videos The videos on the third row were shot on a monopod for most as well as some of the Collins Hill highlights on the last row of that video page.

 

[corkyg]

Another tip for action shots in low light areas - raise the ISO. That will allow you to use a faster shutter speed and/or a smaller aperture for greater DOF. Canon technology just about makes the noise bugaboo go away.

I shoot a lot of jazz festivals at 300 mm (IS, hand held) with high ISO. Here are a couple of samples of ISO 3200 shots of humming birds - their wings are quite fast.

hummer

hummer2

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: alfa147x
I love games, It was funny he told me since i loose my perception of depth while looking into the camera i should lsintne for footsteps and it works!

you should seriously come have fun, yeah parking sucks @ss but if you get their like 30 minutes before the game you can park at the church near the field fine. Hope to meet a fellow AT'er I'll be the Indian kid on the field with my camera :camera:

Try working on shooting with both eyes open. This helps with the footstep issue and gives you better tracking as you pickup on out of frame influences before you need to adjust for them in frame. It is a skill to master, so do not expect immediate results.

We have parked by Suwanee Dam Rd all the way down once and at the tennis courts last time. Plus, a few of your fellow students are real butt wipes, so just not worth the hassle. Plus more, I live with girls, so I can never be on time again. EVER. We finally left at 6:40 for the 7:00 game against Mill Creek this week. My 10th grader seems to think that schedules are for other people

Oh, and was that your monopod or a borrowed one? I shot sideline video with a monopod myself. Too dangerous to you or the players to use a tripod (the video students are going to lose a camera this year...). As you discovered, with a big lens, a monopod is great for getting unblurry shots. videos The videos on the third row were shot on a monopod for most as well as some of the Collins Hill highlights on the last row of that video page.

Wow never thought of that, i would think would mess up the framing of the shot
About my fellow students, yes they can be....schedules, never heard of them...

The monopod was on the lens the guy let me borrow

I don't think i need one for my 75-300 lens

Originally posted by: corkyg
Another tip for action shots in low light areas - raise the ISO. That will allow you to use a faster shutter speed and/or a smaller aperture for greater DOF. Canon technology just about makes the noise bugaboo go away.

I shoot a lot of jazz festivals at 300 mm (IS, hand held) with high ISO. Here are a couple of samples of ISO 3200 shots of humming birds - their wings are quite fast.

hummer

hummer2

Well the XTI only goes up to 1600 ISO, Kinda stuck with that....

 

[montanafan]

Nice photos, alfa147x. Now that you've started shooting, you're probably going to get hooked, I know I did. I shoot a lot of high school sports and I'm no expert by any means, but I have experimented with a lot of different things and if I can help you with the experience of my many trials and errors I'd be glad to.

I'd love to have a 300 f/2.8 lens for football, but I use a Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 on my DRebel and Rebel XT and it gets the job done. I'm stuck with an ISO of 1600 as well, 3200 sure would be nice, especially with the variety of lighting you get at different high school fields at night. One bit of advice would be to avoid using flash if at all possible. I just hate the look of flash photography in sports. At some fields you just can't get any usable shots without it though.

Another piece of advice would be to get to know the lighting at the field you shoot at most often. The lighting is usually better in the middle of the field and you can get better shutter speeds there. The end zones usually have the worse lighting and if you're standing at the end of the field, you're usually going to have a problem with backlighting.

Also vary what you shoot on the field. It's easy to get a lot of good shots of the QB or the runner with the ball, but concentrate on the linemen from time to time and you'll get some good stuff as well.

Here are a few shots I've taken this season:

Nice hit
QB avoiding a sack
QB not avoiding a sack
Defensive lineman giving it his all

 

[alfa147x]

I also found out that shooting from the opponents side is easier because it's less crowded...

 

[montanafan]

Originally posted by: alfa147x
I also found out that shooting from the opponents side is easier because it's less crowded...

That's something that I should do from time to time, but I never do for two reasons. One, when I'm on the home sideline I have more free reign. I can stand right in the middle of the players if I need to for a shot. That's something I wouldn't be able to do on the other side of the field. Two, some coaches and officials can be nitpicky about photographers on the field. Sometimes an opposing team's coach doesn't like the other team's photographer on their side of the field anywhere near their players. Maybe he thinks they're a spy or something, I don't know, but if they complain to the officials they can get them on your case.

I've heard from other photographers that some officials won't let them shoot from the back of the end zone if they're using a flash. I've never had a problem with them yet, but then I don't use a flash most of the time.

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: montanafan

Originally posted by: alfa147x
I also found out that shooting from the opponents side is easier because it's less crowded...

That's something that I should do from time to time, but I never do for two reasons. One, when I'm on the home sideline I have more free reign. I can stand right in the middle of the players if I need to for a shot. That's something I wouldn't be able to do on the other side of the field. Two, some coaches and officials can be nitpicky about photographers on the field. Sometimes an opposing team's coach doesn't like the other team's photographer on their side of the field anywhere near their players. Maybe he thinks they're a spy or something, I don't know, but if they complain to the officials they can get them on your case.

I've heard from other photographers that some officials won't let them shoot from the back of the end zone if they're using a flash. I've never had a problem with them yet, but then I don't use a flash most of the time.

well the technique i used was to not let the other team know who's side I was on... and i was able to stand in between there players and did not get a complain ... I hope i dont get in any type of problem in the future

also the officials did begin to yell at me and a few other photographers for being to close too the field, they had a dashed line about a foot from the actual "bounds" of the field that no one was suppose to cross...

 

[montanafan]

So you don't have to wear an ID badge?

Around here all the photographers have to wear an ID badge showing what publication they're shooting for. I guess it's because so many parents have DSLRs these days and they don't want them getting down on the field.

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: montanafan
So you don't have to wear an ID badge?

Around here all the photographers have to wear an ID badge showing what publication they're shooting for. I guess it's because so many parents have DSLRs these days and they don't want them getting down on the field.

Well I am suppose to have a "sideline pass" but the field director knows i'm with the yearbook \ news team

 

[gsellis]

Followup: alfa147x's team won as predicted. 24 - 3 over Collins Hill.