Sports Photography - Soccer

I was supposed to shoot a game on Sunday, but the game time was changed and the SID did not change the time posted on the website.  So I show up with 5 minutes left in the game, and the day is  a loss.

Colleges are winding down some already since shooting 2 games a day gets everyone their early-in-the-season coverage.  So I headed over to a local high school just to keep active.  The quality of action definitely drops, so you need to look for more personal / personality shots.

Sports Photography - Soccer and Field Hockey and Soccer

A very busy day yesterday, but ultimately disappointing.  The day started with shooting my kid's soccer game, because if you are a sports photographer, or really any kind of photographer, you become the default team photographer.

Then off to a couple of college games, getting to the second with a generous 4 minutes to set up the remote camera and get ready.  These games were those were it seems that every shot is blocked by a player/referee, or you are just a moment too slow.  Very frustrating.  You catch a break here or there, but all you obsess about is all of the shots you didn't get.  And all of the missed shots just accumulate in your head during the game.

 

 

Sports Photography - Cross Country

A pretty easy day today, one cross country race, and only for one team.  With the race being a 5K things got spread out quite a bit, so it was easy enough to catch all of the runners. Lessons learned from the last meet, but I still need to improve, add that something extra.  It is pretty boring just shooting a runner running down the field.

Sports Photography - Soccer

Craziness again with only one game to shoot today, men's soccer. A pretty even game with some action, which always makes the shooting easier.  Too bad it was 90+ on the turf and humid enough that I was dripping sweat in the first minute sof the game.

Some good shots though. Especially with the goalies for some strange reason.  The remote cam is working well, I just need more luck.

Sports Photography - Volleyball

I know it is crazy, but only one game today.  The good news is that I was able to use strobes.  I don't care how good you think high iso images are getting, compared to strobed images, at iso 250 in this case, there is no comparison.  Of course everyone was not sure they would be ok, because it is new and all, but once the players settled in there was no issue.
The downside, however, is that I cannot machine gun the game.  Timing is more important as the strobes need time to recycle.  More pressure on me.  

 

Sports Photography - Field Hockey and Soccer

Sunday was the end of the weekend and another pair of games to cover. By now I am a little tired, and on top of that the games were less than inspiring. Here I am, supposed to cover the team, and they lose 0-8 (each game).  The action is mostly on one side of the field, but it is with the other team for most of the time.  Trying to make my team look good was the challenge of the day.

 

Sports Photography - Field Hockey and Volleyball

Another double header on Saturday. Field hockey followed by a volleyball game in the afternoon.  The field hockey went ok, with the remote camera producing a few keepers.  It was a close game, but the play was slow, which made for boring pictures.

 

The volleyball was better than Friday, but still not great.  Of course the idea of strobes is too freaky, and half the lights in the gym did not even work, so half the court, lengthwise, was about 2/3 stop brighter than the other half, with a mix of daylight, oscillating xenon, and now shade.  At least I was down to iso 6400, not the iso 16000 I have been shooting at. 

 

Sports Photography - Volleyball

After a tense rush hour drive yesterday I was able to make it to the tournament where I needed to shoot two teams for volleyball.  One game was in a similar setup like last week, so no lights there.  The other had the perfect setup, overhead track with railings, but the team didn't want the lights.  So no lights for the night, all available light, which was torchlights in the dungeon (800, f2.8. iso 16000).  Overall I wasn't very happy with the shots, but quality (lighting) and content (my lack of skill).

Sports Photography - Soccer

I was scheduled to shoot Sunday as well, but some storms rolled in and they cancelled the game.  But this week should provide some opportunities starting with a Women's Soccer game. I ended up being 2-0, but was pretty good with looks of action and physical play.  The remote camera worked, but nothing good came out of it today.  Remotes are low percentage options, but when they do work they give you something different.

Sports Photography - Cross Country and Volleyball

Busy day on Saturday. Started off with cross country in Boston.  It was a nice cloudy day so I thought that I would be smart and set the white balance and be done for the day. Wrong.  Moving from open field to wooded shade threw everything off and it was a pain to fix it afterwards.  Got to remember that just because their are not clouds coming in and out, or I'm moving from front lit to back lit, does not mean that the white balance can change.  Overall not a bad set, but I need to work on getting more variety in the shots.

After the meet it was a race to get to the suburbs to catch a volleyball game at Regis College.  This was a meet where they had two games running next to each other.  That, the short time to get there,  and high wood ceilings meant no strobes for me.  I was left to shoot in horrible lighting, with little room to sit where I could since the teams were on one side of the court and being on the other side meant your back was to the other game.