Football

[TitusvileSurfer]

My cousin is on the team and my uncle is their web master. My aunt called asking if I would take some pictures of my cousin because her point and shoot is...well...a point and shoot. When I got there suddenly I became the official team photog. My cousin is in his senior year so I couldn't refuse. I shot them for half an hour or so in their first full pad practice. The first couple hours were rained out:

Wait your going to face mask your own teammate on the first day in pads? Seriously?

You hit him high, hit him high, hit him high! I'll hit him low, hit him low, hit him low

My cousin is #60, maroon on the right

 

[Brett9917]

Excellent photos man!! I really like the "Hit em High Hit em Low" Shot

 

[Reef Bass]

Good looking shots there Mr. Frozen Action. I particularly like #2. I get a large sense of movement from the static image. Player #18 on the far left looks like he's hailing a cab.

You've done your usual excellent job with manual exposure. It also appears the lighting was on your side, meaning somewhat overcast, no harsh shadows, no blown out white areas which would have been very likely had the sun been shining fully on those white jerseys.

 

[Recty]

Very nice job. I particularly like the first shot where you can see the QB just starting to launch the ball.

 

[truthdesigns]

Nice shots I like #2 you can see the determination on #40's
Eyes. Awsome!!!

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Here is a tighter crop on #2

Sometimes the ability to freeze action is a talent all its own. I was using f/4.5-f/5.6 on most of these but when the sun goes down and the stadium lights are my only backup, Mr. f/2.8 and IS will come to rescue me. I took 153 pictures this session and deemed a little over 100 worthy of taking up hard drive space. 1 was out of focus, the others were just uninteresting. Some made me wince though.

 

[BlueCorn]

TS - they all look, to me on my monitor, like they all could use another 1/2 to full stop exposure.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Yeah I'll agree they look a little underexposed. They do have some subtle but undeniable highlights though. White jerseys are always challenging, I wanted to preserve the detail in them. I took some closeups on them with a live view histogram and adjusted my exposure until I was getting highlights but not bad. If nothing else it was an interesting way to meter. Like you pointed out though, it should have used 1/640 instead of 1/800 or maybe f/4 or something.

 

[chi3f]

i can't weait two more weeks til football start!!!!!

 

[corwin]

Kewl action shots! Fantasy League starts tomorrow for us. I hope I am not plagued with injuries and TO like stats again this year. hehe

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

I've never played fantasy football. I've never even tried. That is probably a skill I should have.

 

[DC71763]

For what it worth shooting football during the day is easy, once the sun goes down and the lights come on is when it gets tricky. I have had some great results with the following setting. f/2.8 lens w/ aperture set at 2.8 , shutter speed not less than 500 to freeze the action, ISO not higher than 1200 (or you start to get noise - how much depends on your camera). A nother trick you can try is to bump up you exposer comp. if your camera lets you. At 9:30pm I usually push mine upi to +1. Ihave had some great results with the above. I'm shooting a Nikon D300 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens.

Your above shoot look good

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

I have a canon 40D with a 70-200 f/2.8 IS (IS is your version of VR)