BetterPhoto Member |
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Needing some help with Friday night football games
What's going on gang? I have a Tamron 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 LD lens. I can't think of my flash right now, but it is a Canon and ran me about $200 from Tristatecamera.com. The camera I'm using is a Canon Elan 7. I'm using 800 speed film on game nights and have some old light poles for lighting.
Some pics come out fine, but most of the time it's guess work and working for a newspaper, guess work isn't going to cut it. Any advice on how to throw ou the guess work, and get good pics about 97% of the time. Thank you all very much!
July 20, 2003
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Carol Brill |
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Zach, I've been shooting Friday night high school football games for about 3 years now, first with a Minolta Maxxum STsi, 100-300mm lens, and now with the same Canon Elan 7e you have, with a Canon 75-300 4.5-5.6 IS lens (also 420EX flash). Here are some things that have helped me. 1. Use a monopod (refs don't like tripods and they are harder to get out of the way in a hurry).
2. I use Fujicolor press 1600 speed film since lighting conditions can be so variable, even on one field. In really low light there can be graininess, but at least you get the shot! (see attached photos) If you're on an extremely poorly lit field, consider bumping up the ISO on your camera a stop or two (to 2400 or even 3200), then have your PROFESSIONAL lab push the film the same number of stops (drugstore/chain labs can't do this).
3. Of course, open your aperture as wide as you can; shutter speed can vary depending on the action, usually somewhere in the 1/500-1000 range (any faster on this lens, unfortunately, makes the photo too dark). You may have to set the camera to the manual mode for this.
4. I don't use flash during the game, but that depends on the coach/players, so check with them. Most of the newspaper photographers don't either, but then they have those humungous fast L-series lenses! It only helps for anything remotely close-up, and it always seems the action happens all the way across the field out of flash range anyway!
5. See the excellent article by Rob Miracle on Sports Photography at photo.net. This probably won't give you 97% good pics, but it should help considerably, and hopefully there are more experienced shooters out there to expand on this. Good luck!
July 22, 2003
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