Little 'uns soccer - C&C requested
John Patrick
Registered Users Posts: 52 Big grins
OK, so I spent 7 hours shooting soccer (U6 and U7) on Saturday.
(Background follows, so if you don't want to read it, just skip to the pictures below!)
Background: My city has a rec soccer league, U6 through U14, plus a rec league for high-school-aged girls. It supports not only my city of 35,000 but several surrounding cities as well. The total number of teams are around 225, with games played on 18 fields, from 8 AM to the last game ending at 3:30 PM. They only have a contracted T&I photographer. I had been shooting my daughter's team in the fall, and was having a blast, and getting better; in fact, some parents on the other teams asked if I was going to be photographing their team some day. So I decided (New Year's Resolution and all that) to attempt to tap into the available sales to parents. I got with the league, gave them my proposal, and they bit, er, accepted! I was stoked!
(And no, I'm not getting all 225 teams. In fact, I'll be lucky if I get 25 teams photographed this spring season!)
Well, Saturday was the first game day, and I learned several lessons.
Lesson One: Wear sunscreen! I was so nervous and excited about shooting, that I forgot to put on sunscreen. I am red, both from embarrassment and a little excess sun; in fact, my face is now peeling. Wonderful.
Lesson Two: At this age, some kids run away from the ball! Trying to get action shots of all the kids on a team is very difficult when they don't want to be in the play!
Lesson Three: I need a better way of keeping track of how many I have during the shoot; I found in sorting that I had way too many of several players, but hardly any of others. I must attempt to make a better effort to keep track. [FONT=Geneva, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] For the U6 games, I'm trying to shoot both teams as they only have 6-8 on a team, and play 4-on-4 with quite a few subs. However, I did miss a kid in two games, so I'll have to handle that soon. For the U7 and up, I'm only shooting a single team.[/FONT]
Lesson Four: Some parents are interested, others aren't. C'est la vie.
Lesson Five: Interesting changes in light in early morning when shooting away from sun vs. toward sun (see below).
Ok, the images. All EXIF should be intact. I shot with a 20D+grip, 300/4IS or 70-200/4, depending on field and where the play was.
1. Shooting away from the sun, 300mm f/4 here.
2. Shooting into the sun, 300mm here as well. Note the change in color of the grass. Is this an AWB issue? WB set at AWB, I consider myself lucky that I remembered to check ISO before shooting, so I'll forgive myself for WB.
3. 300mm, away from the sun. This is very close to actual jersey color.
4. 70-200mm, into the sun. The jerseys have gone fluorescent green! This is a decent crop.
5. Ah, U6 boys, getting rough! 70-200mm here, different field, and several hours later, so different angle.
6. 70-200mm here. This U6 boy had an interesting face in EVERY SHOT. A decent crop here (bad framing on my part).
7. U6 boy lining up a corner kick. One of my favorites for the day. Sun at my left.
All in all, a good (but painful) day. Need to figure out the big difference in grass and jersey colors during early morning play, though.
Any C&C? I can take it.
(Oh, it looks like my 70-200 is either back-focusing in servo mode, or I can't shoot. And the 20D+grip with 300 f/4LIS was occasionally locking up and not responding, and I had to power-cycle it. It got more than annoying at times.)
John
(Background follows, so if you don't want to read it, just skip to the pictures below!)
Background: My city has a rec soccer league, U6 through U14, plus a rec league for high-school-aged girls. It supports not only my city of 35,000 but several surrounding cities as well. The total number of teams are around 225, with games played on 18 fields, from 8 AM to the last game ending at 3:30 PM. They only have a contracted T&I photographer. I had been shooting my daughter's team in the fall, and was having a blast, and getting better; in fact, some parents on the other teams asked if I was going to be photographing their team some day. So I decided (New Year's Resolution and all that) to attempt to tap into the available sales to parents. I got with the league, gave them my proposal, and they bit, er, accepted! I was stoked!
(And no, I'm not getting all 225 teams. In fact, I'll be lucky if I get 25 teams photographed this spring season!)
Well, Saturday was the first game day, and I learned several lessons.
Lesson One: Wear sunscreen! I was so nervous and excited about shooting, that I forgot to put on sunscreen. I am red, both from embarrassment and a little excess sun; in fact, my face is now peeling. Wonderful.
Lesson Two: At this age, some kids run away from the ball! Trying to get action shots of all the kids on a team is very difficult when they don't want to be in the play!
Lesson Three: I need a better way of keeping track of how many I have during the shoot; I found in sorting that I had way too many of several players, but hardly any of others. I must attempt to make a better effort to keep track. [FONT=Geneva, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] For the U6 games, I'm trying to shoot both teams as they only have 6-8 on a team, and play 4-on-4 with quite a few subs. However, I did miss a kid in two games, so I'll have to handle that soon. For the U7 and up, I'm only shooting a single team.[/FONT]
Lesson Four: Some parents are interested, others aren't. C'est la vie.
Lesson Five: Interesting changes in light in early morning when shooting away from sun vs. toward sun (see below).
Ok, the images. All EXIF should be intact. I shot with a 20D+grip, 300/4IS or 70-200/4, depending on field and where the play was.
1. Shooting away from the sun, 300mm f/4 here.
2. Shooting into the sun, 300mm here as well. Note the change in color of the grass. Is this an AWB issue? WB set at AWB, I consider myself lucky that I remembered to check ISO before shooting, so I'll forgive myself for WB.
3. 300mm, away from the sun. This is very close to actual jersey color.
4. 70-200mm, into the sun. The jerseys have gone fluorescent green! This is a decent crop.
5. Ah, U6 boys, getting rough! 70-200mm here, different field, and several hours later, so different angle.
6. 70-200mm here. This U6 boy had an interesting face in EVERY SHOT. A decent crop here (bad framing on my part).
7. U6 boy lining up a corner kick. One of my favorites for the day. Sun at my left.
All in all, a good (but painful) day. Need to figure out the big difference in grass and jersey colors during early morning play, though.
Any C&C? I can take it.
(Oh, it looks like my 70-200 is either back-focusing in servo mode, or I can't shoot. And the 20D+grip with 300 f/4LIS was occasionally locking up and not responding, and I had to power-cycle it. It got more than annoying at times.)
John
John Patrick
Canon shooter
Canon shooter
0
Comments
Deb
I thought that the last shot was the best but over all I thought they all were good
http://www.photographybywidget.com
what lens did you use the canon 70-200 f2.8 is did you have your camera in manuel. av?
http://www.photographybywidget.com
My 70-200 is the f/4L non-IS, nice and lightweight, and good enough on a bright spring day.
I shoot sports almost entirely in Av, since there are some shadow areas and I don't want to keep tweaking my exposure during the day. I make sure I'm getting 1/500th or faster, and I'm fine.
John
Canon shooter