Ga Tech vs Miami

wxwax · October 5, 2004

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 · October 6, 2004

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 · October 6, 2004

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 · October 10, 2004

tmlphoto · October 12, 2004

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 · October 12, 2004

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 · October 12, 2004

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 · October 12, 2004

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.

Ga Tech vs Miami

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