Oops!

Double post. The post previous to this one was just thrown up today. Disregard the date that it shows.

Still, I did what I hoped I would never do. Take forever to update my blog!

Well, Since the Salmon Festival, I've shot some soccer, football, and another "festival" of sorts.

I'm going to combine the football and the soccer because I experienced the same problems with both. That problem was available light. There was little if any of it.

When you get to a newspaper, much of your sports shooting is going to be high school sports. This can likely be said for almost all newspapers out there other than the real biggies. As I said before, gyms are evil caves out to get photographers.

The same goes for night games outdoors if you're not at a really nice stadium with good lights. I'm shooting with a 2.8 fixed aperture lens. I should be able to shoot pretty well in low light, but when the sun goes down you can only do so much.

This shot was taken after the half of the soccer game. It was so dark that I couldn't get much more than reaction shots and that was at around ASA 800 at 1/125 F/2.8. Dark.

I really should have thought about the light levels earlier and either set up some flashes or shot more in the first half. Something I'll remember from now on. Sun down, done.

This was before the half and the sun was already setting. Note the blur in the ball. That's pretty unacceptable in general. This was at 1/500 of a second and there was still blur.

Aside from the light. Newbies wonder, how do I get shots like that? Timing. You really need to be patient and wait for the moments and then when they're about to happen, shoot like crazy. Don't worry about how many shots you're taking that don't work. Start motoring before the moment, and then don't stop until it's totally over. So many times have I missed the goal shot because I'm thinking about shooting the "running with the ball" shot instead of the "getting it in the goal (or line, through the net, etc)" shot.

Ok, Next post will be likely to feature photographers that you should at the least look at to think about how they're getting their images, and also how they got to the point they did work-wise.