Ga Tech vs Miami

wxwax

My first attempt at shooting sports. I had a 300 f4 lens with a 1.4 extender on it. That gave me a 420mm lens with a minimum aperature of f5.6. More importantly, I quickly realized that the extender really slowed down the autofocus. So while I had somewhat decent range, I would struggle to get action shots.

And so it proved - I had one touchdown bomb framed OK, followed the ball all the way down, but every shot was out of focus. One other discovery - to keep things sharp, I found myself increasing the ISO. I was at ISO 600 by 5pm -- I was trying to keep my shutter speed to at least 500, if I could. So there's noise in the later shots.

These are all shot from the end zone stands, about a dozen rows up in a stadium that seats 55,000. Not huge, but not tiny either. As you can see, I decided to get fans and cheerleaders as well as players. I also shot warmups. If I were to go back, I'd shoot more game action, and crop to make the good stuff bigger.

gubbs

I particularly like the crowd shots. The little girls expression is great, she' s obviously engrossed in the action!

That lift would be difficult with 2 legs, I'm impressed

wxwax

Yes, those male cheerleaders do some lifting. The women are quite brave - I didn't properly frame a couple of leaps of faith that they did during the game.

Here's one for Canon lovers.

wxwax

tmlphoto

Nice set Sid. I'm think I'm going to the GA v. Vandy game this Saturday. I
I'll probably take my 100-400 with a 1.4 & 2x. I really wanted to go to last weeks game, but I had to work. I wonder if they will let you wander around near the field. I'll post some when I get back. Yours look good considering your vantage point. The fans shot are great, with great bokeh.

wxwax

tmlphoto wrote:

Nice set Sid. I'm think I'm going to the GA v. Vandy game this Saturday. I
I'll probably take my 100-400 with a 1.4 & 2x. I really wanted to go to last weeks game, but I had to work. I wonder if they will let you wander around near the field. I'll post some when I get back. Yours look good considering your vantage point. The fans shot are great, with great bokeh.

Thanks, man. You're taking a good set-up. A couple of thoughts, based on my one experience: the 1.4 will dramatically slow down your autofocus. I've not yet used a 2x, can't speak to what it does. With the 1.4 you'll notice that you can't track a ball in flight, for example, and get the catch in focus.

Also, when you turn and shoot the crowd, be thinking about changing your f-stop to something smaller. I was f5.6, and I thought that was fine. But when you're at 420mm and shooting something 10 yards away, that ol' depth of field is suddenly very narrow again. I had ears in focus and noses not.

One final thought: to get a decent shutter speed in overcast conditions, at f5.6 using the 1.4x, I had to keep upping my ISO.

Have a great time, I'm looking forward to seeing yer pix!

tmlphoto

wxwax wrote:

Thanks, man. You're taking a good set-up. A couple of thoughts, based on my one experience: the 1.4 will dramatically slow down your autofocus. I've not yet used a 2x, can't speak to what it does. With the 1.4 you'll notice that you can't track a ball in flight, for example, and get the catch in focus.

Also, when you turn and shoot the crowd, be thinking about changing your f-stop to something smaller. I was f5.6, and I thought that was fine. But when you're at 420mm and shooting something 10 yards away, that ol' depth of field is suddenly very narrow again. I had ears in focus and noses not.

One final thought: to get a decent shutter speed in overcast conditions, at f5.6 using the 1.4x, I had to keep upping my ISO.

Have a great time, I'm looking forward to seeing yer pix!

Thanks for the advice. The games at 12:30, maybe it will be sunny. Do you think they would let me in with a monopod?

wxwax

tmlphoto wrote:

Thanks for the advice. The games at 12:30, maybe it will be sunny. Do you think they would let me in with a monopod?

Tech would have. Other than checking my bag when I went in, they were very cool about photography. Dunno about UGA.