Advice for shooting a football game from the sidelines?

[TheBiles]

I've been given the chance to spend the game on the sideline for Saturday's GT vs Maryland game, and I was wondering if anyone with any experience could give me some last minute pointers or pro-tips. It's a noon game, so lighting isn't really a factor (our stadium won't cast any shadows at that hour). I'll be shooting primarily with my 70-200 f/2.8 on the 60D, so my limiting factor is definitely the AF capabilities of the 60D. What I could really use assistance with is how to track the players effectively and anticipate big plays so that I can quickly zero in on them. I usually shoot from the stands around 10 or 15 rows in, so I am used to having a vantage point of some kind. One of the things I've been trying to figure out is if I should shoot with the center AF point only or try and let the camera do its thing with all of them. My concern with center-only is that I will be slightly off a big play and focus on the crowd right behind it.

I look forward to any support.

 

[tirediron]

Feetsball... thassa one with the brown, pointy ball, right?


When I do shoot sports (mostly just for practice), I simply follow who's ever got the ball. Keep your shutter speed at a good action-stopping level, say 1/500 and be prepared to spend the entire time looking through your viewfinder. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with Canon focusing to give you any advice there. Good luck!

 

[TheBiles]

Feetsball... thassa one with the brown, pointy ball, right?


When I do shoot sports (mostly just for practice), I simply follow who's ever got the ball. Keep your shutter speed at a good action-stopping level, say 1/500 and be prepared to spend the entire time looking through your viewfinder. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with Canon focusing to give you any advice there. Good luck!

The only problem with always following the guy with the ball is they actually throw it in football.

Edit: Well, I guess Tech doesn't throw it very often so this might not be as much of an issue.

 

[Derrel]

Try to stay 10-15 yards in front of the line of scrimmage. As you mentioned, the lighting OUGHT TO be decent...if the lighting is flat, such as overcast, then feel free to JACK that ISO level UP; noise is not a problem when shot during flat, overcast lighting!!! Higher ISO values, like say ISO 800 or ISO 1,000, in good Georgia light in early-October, will buy you two to two and a third extra stops (six clicks,or even eight clicks more!!!) worth of shutter speed and or f/stop as compared with ISO 200. Being able to have the 70-200 shooting at f/4.8 instead of f/2.8 AND WHILE MAINTAINING A FAST, SAFE shutter speed, makes boosting the ISO a no-brainer. The extra DOF you gain from stopping down a bit by elevating the ISO will be helpful, and anyway, you can;t really blow out the backgrounds much with the 70-200 anyhow, so, go for what will give you better chances at getting at least decent focus.

I assume you know football and can anticipate pass versus run on obvious passing downs, so if it's 2nd and 10 or 3rd and 9 and GT has the ball on the 30 yard line of those Maryland scaliwags, think PASS and be prepared for a pass. Keep the camera in Continuous focus mode, on the highest frame rate it can shoot at, and PAY ATTENTION. Don't talk to anybody else, and don't let other people chatter at you and distract you, and don't waste time chimping. A lot of TD passes are to the corners of the end-zone. As soon as GT scores, immediately swing the camera to the bench, the coaching staff, or the fans behind you and get the REACTION SHOT, and do it fast. Have a boatload of 8-gig CF cards on hand with you.

 

[TheBiles]

Try to stay 10-15 yards in front of the line of scrimmage. As you mentioned, the lighting OUGHT TO be decent...if the lighting is flat, such as overcast, then feel free to JACK that ISO level UP; noise is not a problem when shot during flat, overcast lighting!!! Higher ISO values, like say ISO 800 or ISO 1,000, in good Georgia light in early-October, will buy you two to two and a third extra stops (six clicks,or even eight clicks more!!!) worth of shutter speed and or f/stop as compared with ISO 200. Being able to have the 70-200 shooting at f/4.8 instead of f/2.8 AND WHILE MAINTAINING A FAST, SAFE shutter speed, makes boosting the ISO a no-brainer. The extra DOF you gain from stopping down a bit by elevating the ISO will be helpful, and anyway, you can;t really blow out the backgrounds much with the 70-200 anyhow, so, go for what will give you better chances at getting at least decent focus.

I assume you know football and can anticipate pass versus run on obvious passing downs, so if it's 2nd and 10 or 3rd and 9 and GT has the ball on the 30 yard line of those Maryland scaliwags, think PASS and be prepared for a pass. Keep the camera in Continuous focus mode, on the highest frame rate it can shoot at, and PAY ATTENTION. Don't talk to anybody else, and don't let other people chatter at you and distract you, and don't waste time chimping. A lot of TD passes are to the corners of the end-zone. As soon as GT scores, immediately swing the camera to the bench, the coaching staff, or the fans behind you and get the REACTION SHOT, and do it fast. Have a boatload of 8-gig CF cards on hand with you.

Awesome advice! I hadn't even thought about the reaction shots! What would you recommend as far as autofocus point selection? Center-only or all of them?


--
Sent from my Droid Bionic.

 

[Derrel]

Not sure how well the 60D works with a multi-point AF approach...can it be set to use a small sub-set of the AF points, the way the modern Nikons can be set? How about a closest-subject priority setting? Does the 60D have that, to avoid locking onto the far sideline and or the crowd on the opposite side of the stadium? I'm not familiar with the 60D's AF nuances...

 

[TheBiles]

Not sure how well the 60D works with a multi-point AF approach...can it be set to use a small sub-set of the AF points, the way the modern Nikons can be set? How about a closest-subject priority setting? Does the 60D have that, to avoid locking onto the far sideline and or the crowd on the opposite side of the stadium? I'm not familiar with the 60D's AF nuances...

I'll have to check the manual, but I do not think it does. AFAIK, you can only select one specific AF point or all of them, but their may be a Cn function that I don't know about.

 

[KmH]

Even with a multiple focus point mode selected the camera can only use one of them to set the focus distance.

When I shot sports I always selected the focus point, and I also used back button focus instead of the half-press on the shutter button.

Shooting action sports is one of the toughest type of photography to do. It's tough on both the wetware (you) and the hardware.

Faces and emotion are the holy grail of action sports shooting.

 

[gsgary]

Shoot down low on your knees it will make the player look more powerfull, i shoot rugby which is similar but they don't wear all the silly protection so you get some good facials

 

[Ballistics]

Shoot down low on your knees it will make the player look more powerfull, i shoot rugby which is similar but they don't wear all the silly protection so you get some good facials

They also don't make $625,000 a game or generate 4000lbs of force on impact. Nice shot though.

 

[gsgary]

Have you ever seen pro rugby ? probably not they hit just as hard as American football

 

[Ballistics]

Have you ever seen pro rugby ? probably not they hit just as hard as American football

I have seen pro rugby, I actually like the sport. But they don't have 320 lbs players running 40 yds in 4.8 seconds landing blows equivalent to car accidents. Jonah Lomu exists on almost every team in american football.
Protection is there to protect the investments of the team.

 

[Derrel]

Have you ever seen pro rugby ? probably not they hit just as hard as American football

Pro rugby is a dirty sport...plenty of punches and elbows thrown, nuts wrenched, arches stepped on, shins kicked...hard to compare the hits though...American football has many more opposite-direction, long-runup tackles where, due to the pads and helmets being worn, tacklers feel totally uninhibited from tackling with their head leading (illegally I might add, but still wayyyy too common). Rugby to me seems is comparable in violence of hits to American-style football as played back in the 1940's before facemasks, and when leather helmets were the norm...the LACK of protective gear keeps the hits from being so damned violent that men are carted off on stretchers with season-ending injuries frequently. The lack of pads and helmets in rugby and Australian rules football keeps the collisions to mere mortal levels, where when you deliver a blow, you pay for it equally as the guy receiving it.

I played football in the late 1970's and into the early 1980's, during the transitional period from the old-school "suspension helmet" to the new, modern "air" helmet or "gel" helmets made by Bike and Riddell and others...with the old-school helmets, spearing a guy i.e. leading with the head in a tackle would almost give you a concussion...today, with the moderns 100% coverage "air" or "gel" lined helmets, a player hardly feels helmet-to-helmet impacts unless they are of the highest order, and the tackles made nowadays are MORE-brutal than ever before in the history of American-rules football. Especially with the advent of 300-340 pound defensive linemen and 265 pound linebackers and 200-215 pound safety and corner men!!!