Field (football/soccer) lens

[ac12]

Since Ron has posted a BUNCH of great football pics, and a few of us are interested in football photography, I thought I would start a thread on gear for shooting NON-Pro football/soccer.
IOW your kid in middle/high school.

Lighting:

One "problem" that I have where I live, is that the league schedules high school football on Friday after school.
- JV starts at about 4, and starts in sunlight, and goes to lights as the sun goes down.
- Varsity starts at 7pm, and plays under lights.
The only day games are at schools which do not have lighted fields. Then it is Saturday morning.

Soccer is reversed (for whatever reason). Varsity plays first, then JV.
Again half the first game is under lights, and the 2nd game completely under lights.

So, for high school, you have to deal with rather LOW light level.

This lighting issue carries into the camera and lens discussion.

MY exposure at night is:
ISO 6400, aperture f/4 (wide open), shutter speed 1/400 sec.

I understand that middle/intermediate schools do not play at night.

I will follow with separate posts for camera and lenses, so this post isn't so long.

 

[ac12]

This is the Camera post.

As I discussed with my high school Athletic Director, night games is when equipment matters.
Some of the older dSLRs have a max ISO of 6400, or less.

Depending on what lens you use, this may not be high enough. Especially with the commonly used slow kit lenses.
Typically, if you are pushing the max ISO, you are also generating more high ISO noise.​

When shooting at night, under lights, 6400 is just not high enough, unless you have a seriously fast lens.

If you shoot a 70-200/2.8, then you can use these cameras.​

What about sensor size:

In general, for a given generation of cameras, the FF cameras have better low light performance than the APS-C and other crop cameras.

Even in the FF cameras, some are better at higher resolution (36+MP) vs. low light. And some are better at low light, than the high resolution models.
Example the Nikon D750 is generally acknowledged as the best of the non-pro Nikon FF cameras for low light, vs. the high resolution D810/850.

I shoot an APS-C/DX camera.
This is only because I had it, before I started shooting high school sports. And I don't have the $$$$, to buy a D750 just to shoot football.

An interesting benefit of using crop camera is the crop effect.
A 70-200 on an APS-C camera will give you a similar Field of View as a 105-300 lens on a FF camera. So with the same lens, you have more reach.


A HIGH continuous frame rate is nice to have, but NOT critically important.
As I tell my students, a rather slow 3 frames per second is still 6 times faster than my 2 seconds per frame with my manual 35mm film camera.
You just have to learn timing.
Most modern cameras have at least 6 fps frame rate.

 

[Derrel]

A compromise between speed and reach would be a fixed 300mm f/4. What camera brand and model do you have? That might come into play... if you have a high-mp camera (36-47 mp) you can crop a lot, and a shorter lens might be usable. IF YOU have an m4/3 camera, a shorter lens would give you the same picture angle with a shorter lens compared with a FF camera or an APS-C camera.

Daylight vs dusk vs under the lights is really a critical area.so is camera ISO capability.

 

[ac12]

This is the Lens post:

The lens you need depends on where you are vs the field.
If you are in the bleachers, you need a longer lens than me on the sidelines.

I happen to shoot for the yearbook and the Athletic Director, so I can shoot on the sidelines.
Access to shoot on the sidelines seems to get stricter as you go up.

• Middle/intermediate school tends to be easy.
• High school a bit harder.
• College, tough
• Pro, VERY RESTRICTED

At my high school I've seen students and parents on the sidelines.

If you are on the sidelines, there are several good lenses

• APS-C/DX: 18-140 (day), 35-150, 70-200.
• FF/FX: 70-200, 70-300 (day), 100-400 (day)

If you are in the bleachers

70-300, 100-400, 150-600​

During the day these longer lenses are fine. But at night they will require a higher ISO level, or slower shutter speed.

Here are the lenses that I've used, and my comments about them.
All are used on a Nikon D7200 APS-C/DX camera.

• 18-140/3.5-5.6
  • I really like this lens for a DAY game. I can get the players up close (sometimes too close), as well as up to about mid-field. And the slow speed is not an issue during the day, when you have plenty of sunlight.
    
  • But at f/5.6, it is pretty slow for night games, where I have to shoot at ISO 12800 and 1/400 sec. If I wanted 1/800 sec, I would have to be at ISO 25600.
• 70-200/4
  • This is my current Night game lens.
  • This is a compromise lens. The compromise is for an acceptable weight. The f/4 lens is HALF the weight of the f/2.8 lens. I am a senior citizen. Two sequential games means that I am shooting from 4pm to about 9pm.
    
  • I would love to shoot the 70-200/2.8, but the weight would be too much for me. A younger person could easily handle the weight.
  • This was a compromise lens. What I really wanted was a DX equivalent to the FX 70-200/2.8, so 45-135. At the time, none existed.
    • Today Tamron has a 35-150/2.8-4, which would be the lens I would get, for an APS-C/DX camera.
• 70-200/2.8
  • Basically the fastest field lens.
    • The Sigma 50-100/1.8 is faster, but has a smaller zoom range, and it is a HEAVY lens. With the limited 50-100 FL, it is also a rather specialized lens.
  • But, for me, it is a HEAVY lens.
    • Remember, I am a senior citizen, and I am shooting two sequential games from 4pm to 9.
    • I tried shooting on a monopod, but it does not work with my style of shooting.
  • Note: If you shoot a Nikon, the Sigma zoom ring turns in the opposite direction from your Nikon zoom rings. If you zoom with muscle memory, this can/will be an issue for you.
• Tamron 35-150/2.8-4
  • This is an APS-C equivalent to the FF 70-200 on a FF camera.
  • The short end lets you get the shots when the players get closer to you, than the longer 70-200 will do.
  • If this lens was available when I got my 70-200/4, I may have gotten this lens instead.
    
  • Note: If you shoot a Canon, the Tamron zoom ring turns in the opposite direction from your Canon zoom rings. If you zoom with muscle memory, this can/will be an issue for you.
    
  • Note: The lens does NOT have a tripod foot. If you use a monopod, this will make a difference to you.

• 70-300/4-5.6
  • I have not used this lens, because I had the 70-200/4 to use.
  • This would be a good DAY lens, where the slower max aperture would not be a handicap.
  • It has more reach than the 70-200.
  • If your kid is in middle school playing during the day, you need to find out if the high school games are at night, when the slower 70-300 lens will not work as well as a faster lens.

Note, that the lenses that I shoot with and how I shoot is primarily gear to shooting multi-player plays, vs. a tight individual shot.

I have seen others shooting 300/2.8 and 400/2.8 lens.
I suspect they are shooting tight individual shots.

I find that for ME, I have to zoom out/wide, to be able track a fast moving player, then zoom in/tight for the shot.
I have trouble tracking a fast moving player with the lens on max zoom.

 

[ac12]

A compromise between speed and reach would be a fixed 300mm f/4. What camera brand and model do you have? That might come into play... if you have a high-mp camera (36-47 mp) you can crop a lot, and a shorter lens might be usable. IF YOU have an m4/3 camera, a shorter lens would give you the same picture angle with a shorter lens compared with a FF camera or an APS-C camera.

Daylight vs dusk vs under the lights is really a critical area.so is camera ISO capability.

IMHO, the killer for us non-pros is the night game, and its LOW light level.
This is high school, but the low light level almost calls for PRO level gear.
We can make do with non-pro gear, but compromises have to be made.

I think back to the bad old days of film, when the max I had was Tri-X pushed to ASA 1200.
I think we capped at 1/60 or 1/125 sec, at night.

 

[BillM]

While Pro level gear is great for night games it doesn't have to be the latest and greatest Pro gear. The price for a D3s in good working order right now is under $1000. And an older f/2.8 70-200 can be had for around $650. 15 years ago that would have been a flagship combo for a pro. You can get a lot of high quality shooting done with a combo like that today

 

[ac12]

Exposure and exposure issues:

If you are shooting from the bleachers, you will be shooting onto the field, so your background is the field, and your metering should not get confused.

However, if you are shooting ON the field, you will be shooting across the field.
This means your background is NOT the field, and could be in very different lighting.

Problem 1 background:

Problem:

a) When I shoot at night much of my background is BLACK. This messes up the meter, into overexposing the players on the field.

This is an example of this. The DARK background confused the meter into over exposing the players:

b) The aluminum bleachers on the "visitor" side of my field reflects sunlight. When I shoot towards it, that messes up the meter, into under exposing the players on the field. So I get the opposite of the above, a very dark and UNDER exposed player. I have had this happen with just a single aluminum bench, which reflected enough sunlight to confuse the meter into under exposing the players.​

Solution1

I set the meter to Center Weight mode. The I set the AF to use single point AF, center then up one.
This forces me to focus on the subject using the AF point 1 up from center. By doing this, the camera is pointed slightly down. This forces the meter to read the ground, just below the subject, rather than the background.
Note: This does NOT work when the player makes a jump. Because when you follow the jump up, the meter is now reading the background, not the ground.
Note: This does not work well for LONG shots to the other side of the field, because I am metering the field between the player and me, not the ground under the player.​

Solution2

IF the light level is somewhat even across the field, you can put the camera into manual mode, set the exposure, and not have to deal with the meter being confused by the background.
But this is not a foolproof solution either. See "uneven lighting" below.​

Changing light:

As the sun goes down, so does the light level. So you need to be aware of that, and raise your ISO level, or shoot in Auto ISO mode.
If you are in Aperture Priority mode, and do not monitor the shutter speed, when it gets dark, you may find the camera down at 1/30 sec.
This is really easy to mess up on, as I am concentrating on the game, as the sun is setting. I don't normally look at the shutter speed in the viewfinder.

This is easier to check in football, as you have plays, where the action stops and you can check exposure.
But in soccer, the game just keeps moving, so pauses in the game are less often.​

Uneven lighting

At my school there are only TWO light stands on each side of the field, vs. two other schools near me with four light stands on each side of the field. As a result, the lighting is not even towards the goal line.
Inside of the 10 yard line, I am down one stop, from the center of the field.

Problem: If I am shooting from behind the end line, any player inside the 10 yard line will be back lit, and his face in deep shadow. IOW a black shadow instead of a face.​

In the corners, I am down two stops, from the center of the field.

A good percentage of TD runs/passes are into the dark corners.​

I shoot in different modes, depending on day vs. night, and what I feel like doing.

At night, I may shoot in A mode, to force the camera to shoot the lens wide open.
At night, if the lighting is even, I may shoot in M mode, so that the camera won't change the exposure on me.
During the day, I may shoot in A mode to control the DoF, S mode to fix the shutter speed, or M if there is reflective or dark background.
It is a judgement call that I make at the game, based on the lighting.

​

 

[ac12]

While Pro level gear is great for night games it doesn't have to be the latest and greatest Pro gear. The price for a D3s in good working order right now is under $1000. And an older f/2.8 70-200 can be had for around $650. 15 years ago that would have been a flagship combo for a pro. You can get a lot of high quality shooting done with a combo like that today

Agree about the used lens giving you a good return for your buck.
My 70-200/4 was bought used.