...and unless someone leaves me a 300mm 2.8 in their will, I doubt that I will do it again on a Friday night.

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Farmington Falcon Football by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

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Farmington Falcon Football by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

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Farmington Falcon Football by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

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Farmington Falcon Football by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

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Farmington Falcon Cheerleader by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

Results look good to me.

If you are just doing it for fun you may want to try a used 70-300mm 4.5/5.6 on DX mode. You get good enough reach and quality is good enough just the fun of it. Actually, I got some fairly good college football shots with that lens on a DX body.

Phil

Holy crap, you call that hard?

Uh. Wait till you have to shoot under crap ass lights that needed to be upgraded 20 years ago and the best you can get is 1/200 @ 2.8 ISO6400. Thankfully I don't worry about those placed now that I use a 1Dx, but with my old cameras, complete NIGHTMARE.

Football under sunny conditions like you shot should be an absolute breeze. Yeah, so you have to crop tight in post to get good action.. it's nowhere near as bad as shooting under the lights!

Jim, you're right. The lighting situation on the shots football shots I posted wasn't hard. These were taken at the start of the game when the sun was still above the horizon. At the start of the second half, once the sun was completely gone it became darn near impossible for me to get shots I'm happy with.

The overall challenges I had, even in daylight, were several fold.

1.

The long glass I have isn't fast enough to shoot under high school stadium lights. Once it got dark, it was pretty much useless. In addition, it isn't or wasn't really designed to shoot fast action as the AF isn't anywhere near snappy enough to keep up with moving players. As I don't plan on doing this for income, I plan on leaving it to you "sports shooter" and not buying the glass I would want to do it right.

2.

I personally am not familiar enough with the the sport of football as I am with a few others. Because of this lack of knowledge, it was difficult for me to anticipate plays and position myself for the best shooting location to capture action. I found myself looking in the wrong place a lot.

3.

Although I shoot hockey quite a bit with off camera strobes, outdoor football posed a few challenges, that prior to this, I've had no experience with. I did rig up a clamp on my mono pod and used both the on camera sb-800 with another mounted below the camera on the mono pod. It produced mixed results that I'm not particularly happy with as well as some non firing issues. When I have a moment to go through the second half images taken with flash, I will post a couple.

Originally Posted by Bryce Wilson Jim, you're right. The lighting situation on the shots football shots I posted wasn't hard. These were taken at the start of the game when the sun was still above the horizon. At the start of the second half, once the sun was completely gone it became darn near impossible for me to get shots I'm happy with. The overall challenges I had, even in daylight, were several fold. 1. The long glass I have isn't fast enough to shoot under high school stadium lights. Once it got dark, it was pretty much useless. In addition, it isn't or wasn't really designed to shoot fast action as the AF isn't anywhere near snappy enough to keep up with moving players. As I don't plan on doing this for income, I plan on leaving it to you "sports shooter" and not buying the glass I would want to do it right. 2. I personally am not familiar enough with the the sport of football as I am with a few others. Because of this lack of knowledge, it was difficult for me to anticipate plays and position myself for the best shooting location to capture action. I found myself looking in the wrong place a lot. 3. Although I shoot hockey quite a bit with off camera strobes, outdoor football posed a few challenges, that prior to this, I've had no experience with. I did rig up a clamp on my mono pod and used both the on camera sb-800 with another mounted below the camera on the mono pod. It produced mixed results that I'm not particularly happy with as well as some non firing issues. When I have a moment to go through the second half images taken with flash, I will post a couple.

Yeah, 70-200 is bare minimum. I use a 70-200 with a 1.4TC which basically gives me a 98-280 @ F4. Even then there are times that I wish it was a straight 300. But then also at times I wish I was shooting with 2 bodies, one with a short lens, like 24-70 when the action comes right for you on the sidelines.

As far as the sport itself, there seems to be nowhere ever good to stand with football unless you have a 400mm and can sit in the end zone all day long. You constantly have to move, I try to stay at the line of scrimmage (less typically) or about 15 yards up field. Football by far is one of the more difficult to pull off, especially if you work for a news outlet. Trying to get good shots in 1 or 2 quarters (if you even get to the 2nd depending on penalties) and getting them all captioned and happy is just well, a nightmare.

Personally, I can't wait for Basketball season to start!

Originally Posted by Bryce Wilson I personally am not familiar enough with the the sport of football as I am with a few others. Because of this lack of knowledge, it was difficult for me to anticipate plays and position myself for the best shooting location to capture action. I found myself looking in the wrong place a lot.

This is huge for any sport. Even if you know the sport generally, it helps to know the specific team and their tendencies.

As promised a shot after the sun went down. Taken with a 80-400mm 4.5-5.6. 1000 ISO with two SB-800's. Less than wonderful.


Farmington Falcon Football by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

Main Reason I hate flash for football, while it does light up the helmets (inside) you have red eye because the flash is too close to the lens and the convergence point causes red eye.. You could eliminate it by using a monopod and putting the flashes (with an off camera sync cable) way down at the bottom which would still light into the helmets but get rid of the convergence.

That and a 4.5-5.6 is pretty slow.. My last game, I shot was ISO 6400, shooting 1/1000 @ F4. Which depending on the field has it's own issues with lights cycling because the electrician didn't set them up to be 3 phase which means one shot is bright, the next shot is dark.. which is a real PITA and the only way to really fix it is to shoot 1/60 (cycle rate of our power grid) That's a whole other can of worms though. LOL

Im surprised they didn't "accidentally" trample you in the next play.

What Jim mentioned is what I do. No red-eye and great results. Of course, you can't get past the limitations of such a slow lens. If you're using continuous focus you can't use focus assist. Go to single shot to use focus assist and the lens might not focus fast enough before the subject moves out of the focus plane.

The two issues with the posted flash shot that are the biggest problems are:
1) framed too loosely.
2) even with small subjects you can see the red-eye.

Frame tighter, put the flash on a monopod and you get much better results:

John, I'm assuming your shooting in High Speed Sync mode? I ask because I haven't done it this season and I'm using a new camera and setting my shutter speed to 1/1000 regardless of where I am, which puts me anywhere from 6400 to about 25k on my ISO. I know the 1Dx has a higher sync at 1/320 but that's still not where I'd want to shoot, just wanted to know what you were getting away with there...

I don't use HSS - it dramatically lowers the power/range of the flash. I let the flash freeze the action - that way I have zero problem with cycling lights (win), flash has no problem keeping up with the 40 yard range of my 300mm lens (win), I can stop lens down to f4 or lower to get better dof and sharpness (win) and let the light fall-off handle my subject isolation. The only place it burns me is in end-zone shots where the building is right behind. My ISO stays around 1000 - I'm shooting with a 1dIII so I don't have to run noise reduction at that ISO with flash - another win.

Originally Posted by johng I don't use HSS - it dramatically lowers the power/range of the flash. I let the flash freeze the action - that way I have zero problem with cycling lights (win), flash has no problem keeping up with the 40 yard range of my 300mm lens (win), I can stop lens down to f4 or lower to get better dof and sharpness (win) and let the light fall-off handle my subject isolation. The only place it burns me is in end-zone shots where the building is right behind. My ISO stays around 1000 - I'm shooting with a 1dIII so I don't have to run noise reduction at that ISO with flash - another win.

Cool, thx.

Honestly I'm thinking of trying that TT5 transmitter from PW. They say they are able to give you an extra stop (not like I need it for this, but for other things) with using it and adjusting the timings... Might be a worthwhile investment.. But If you're shooting with a 1D3 and don't have problems, I don't see a 1Dx having issues. I need to shoot at F4 because I don't have a 300 (yet) still using a 70-200 with a 1.4TC