Football Photography

[hopeless2887]

I am looking to get an older model SLR, like a Canon AE-1 Program just to have something to learn with. I have been "borrowing" a Canon Rebel and I loved it but I was wanting something a little more challenging and I've heard that the older SLRs have a better quality. My question is how well would the older Canon do for high school football games? I'm not sure I'm good enough to manually focus that quickly.
Thanks for any help!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chase]

You'll most likely need to zone focus, which is basically choosing an area of the field, focus for that area, and then wait for the action to reach you. You'll know, for example, where certain players are likely to make the plays that you want to catch, so just focus on those areas and wait for the play to come to you. As far as quality goes, you shouldn't have any problem there at all.

 

[DocFrankenstein]

If you learn to shoot sports with manual focus camera, your skill is going to be obsolete.

For sports, Canon has pretty much monopolized it. Everything is shot with autofocus cameras digitally.

1) You save a fortune on film.
2) With pro cameras 1D and 1Ds you get about 95% keepers and 8-10 fps

The drawback is that the camera costs 4-8 k and the glass from 5-15k... depending on your requirements.

Get that camera and learn. hehe

 

[hopeless2887]

Thanks, that really helps!

 

[wil]

I am looking to get an older model SLR, like a Canon AE-1 Program just to have something to learn with. I have been "borrowing" a Canon Rebel and I loved it but I was wanting something a little more challenging and I've heard that the older SLRs have a better quality. My question is how well would the older Canon do for high school football games? I'm not sure I'm good enough to manually focus that quickly.
Thanks for any help!!!!!!!!!

I use a Cannon AE1 For sports photography and it works great. If you are going to use it you will need invest in a motor drive there is no way you can advance the film and focus fast enough. I would have to agree with Chase on the Zone focusing, Focusing at the time of the picture would be impossable.

 

[photogoddess]

Way back in the day, I used to shoot high school football for the game program, the yearbook and the school paper. I used an old (mid 1970s) Rolleiflex SL35 with a couple of good lenses. Strictly manual focus and no autodrive. When you do it enough, you get to be good at both zone and predictive focusing not to mention advancing the film quickly. I'd say that your biggest challenges are going to be getting glass that is fast enough to do the job for night games and learning how to focus on moving subjects.

 

[Jeff Canes]

I learned to shot sport mostly baseball on a Canon A-1 with 200mm f2.8 and 2x. Agree the power winder is a must and make sure it’s 3fps model, you should be able get one for between 100-150 USD.

IMO shooting at night is going to be tough, unless you're willing to life with so grainy shots