Memorial Tournament 2009 (golf)

[Jman13]

Went to the practice rounds today for my first ever golf shooting. Took me a while to get going, and I noticed that my shots definitely got better as the day went on. Here are some of my favorites. It was kind of odd watching them play a practice round...no pressure, just calm, businesslike...lots of second, third, fourth chips and putts from all over each green. Gave lots of opportunities for shots, but unfortunately, no opportunity for capturing much emotion. Went with two bodies and two lenses...1Ds II and 30D with 17-40L and 70-200 f/4L IS (and a 1.4x TC in my pocket). Worked out great, and I'm glad I didn't bring any extra gear beyond that, because it was very hot. The direct sun proved made for very difficult light, especially when the guys wore white. Nearly every shot exceeded the native dynamic range of a JPEG file (luckily I didn't shoot JPEG)...I had to pull highlights AND push shadows from RAW on nearly every shot to get the contrast to fit in the JPEG space. Thank goodness for RAW!

Anyway, here they are:

Ernie Els, putting away:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/els_putt.jpg

Charles Howell III driving on #4:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/howell_drive.jpg

Will MacKenzie pulls an iron:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/mackenzie_club.jpg

Kenny Perry signing autographs for trailing children:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/perry_autograph.jpg

Kenny Perry drives, moments after impact:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/perry_drive.jpg

Charles Howell III tees off on the 10th:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/howell_10th.jpg

I folllowed Jim Furyk for a while, and actually got what I think are my best shots of him (including those not shown here).

First, his tee shot on #6...I love the expression of power, and the floating tee!
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/furyk_drive.jpg

One of his many practice chips on the 6th green:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/furyk_chip.jpg

[Jman13]

The 9th shot that wouldn't fit in the first post:

Jim Furyk teeing off on the Par 3 8th:
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/furyk_par3.jpg

[clarence]

#6 is my favorite ("Charles Howell III tees off on the 10th"), even though it doesn't show his face. I'm usually a sucker for razor-thin DoF, but I really like the deep, scenic detail in that one.

[jsnoah]

Awesome! My faves are the tee shots from behind the golfers! Howell's view is a great snap!

[aviator.4.life]

Nice shots, I was there as well today. I followed Furyk up until the 6th, too bad I didn't notice you. Tomorrow doesn't look so promising, rain all day :(

[Jman13]

Maybe I noticed you...what were you carrying? I was wearing a tan and blue striped shirt and an Indians hat.

Wait..40D and 70-200 f/2.8...you wouldn't happen to be a fairly young person, would you? If so, I ate lunch next to you...

[Joetaco]

#6 is my favorite ("Charles Howell III tees off on the 10th"), even though it doesn't show his face. I'm usually a sucker for razor-thin DoF, but I really like the deep, scenic detail in that one.

agreed.

[aviator.4.life]

Maybe I noticed you...what were you carrying? I was wearing a tan and blue striped shirt and an Indians hat.

Wait..40D and 70-200 f/2.8...you wouldn't happen to be a fairly young person, would you? If so, I ate lunch next to you...

I didn't eat lunch, I just sat next to my friend near the back. Im 18 so I guess im not the typical photographer there lol. Wait I did notice someone with a wide angel on their 1D scrolling through their images, probably you, how cool. I had my SmugMug strap on ;) You going today?

[Jman13]

Yeah, that was definitely me. I figured that was you and your friend sitting back along the counter there as soon as I saw your signature. I am not going back today. I would like to, but it's supposed to be off and on showers, and I've got other things to do than be intermittently wet :) If I lived more towards the west or north sides, I'd probably go again, but it's a haul for me, as I live on the east side, and Muirfield is a good 40 minute drive each way.

[snyderman]

Superb shots! I'll be at the Bridgestone/Firestone tournament later in the summer at Firestone. Loved the 'floating tee' shot as well. Great low angle got the entire story in your shot.

Can you share some of your settings with me? Especially the par-3 shot with the green 200 yards away only slightly OOF? Also, how fast were your shutter speeds? Seem to be really fast due to the slight blurring of the clubs only.

Really nice work. Thanks for posting. And yeah, it's pretty gloomy up north here today! It'll be played in a drizzle-to-light rain all day today!

dave

[aviator.4.life]

Yeah, that was definitely me. I figured that was you and your friend sitting back along the counter there as soon as I saw your signature. I am not going back today. I would like to, but it's supposed to be off and on showers, and I've got other things to do than be intermittently wet :) If I lived more towards the west or north sides, I'd probably go again, but it's a haul for me, as I live on the east side, and Muirfield is a good 40 minute drive each way.

Ya I live on the east side as well, it's about 30 min. for me. Nice meeting you and nice pictures, hopefully I can get some today between the rain.

[Jman13]

Superb shots! I'll be at the Bridgestone/Firestone tournament later in the summer at Firestone. Loved the 'floating tee' shot as well. Great low angle got the entire story in your shot.

Can you share some of your settings with me? Especially the par-3 shot with the green 200 yards away only slightly OOF? Also, how fast were your shutter speeds? Seem to be really fast due to the slight blurring of the clubs only.

Really nice work. Thanks for posting. And yeah, it's pretty gloomy up north here today! It'll be played in a drizzle-to-light rain all day today!

dave

Thanks! (And thanks to the others who have commented)

Here's a rundown of settings for each shot:

1: 30D, 70-200 f/4L IS + 1.4x TC @ 280mm, f/8, 1/1000s, ISO 200
2: 1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 165mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 200
3: 1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 200mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 200
4: 1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 155mm, f/4, 1/2000s, ISO 200
5: 1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 144mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 200
6: 1DsII, 17-40 f/4L @ 29mm, f/8, 1/800s, ISO 200
7: 1DsII, 300mm f/4L IS @ 300mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 200 (borrowed from another photographer who then used my 70-200 f/4 IS)
8: 1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 200mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 200
9: 1DsII, 17-40 f/4L @ 33mm, f/4.5, 1/1000s, ISO 320 (this was supposed to be at f/5.6, but I changed my aperture accidentally before I took the shots, thinking I was in Av instead of manual and when I took a reading really quickly with the camera to my eye. Oops.)

This makes it look like I didn't use my 30D at all, which isn't the case...got a lot of good shots with my 30D, and I took over 200 with it (and almost 400 with my 1DsII), but this just happens to be the breakdown of these shots. I'll post a few more shots later in the day.

[Jman13]

Here are a few more from that day:

Jim Furyk's funky followthrough (though, is there a part of his swing that isn't funky?)
(1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 180mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 200)
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/furyk_swing.jpg

Vijay Singh putts for a birdie on #6 (1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 200mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 200):
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/vijay_putt.jpg

Furyk blasting out of the sand on #7 (30D, 70-200 f/4L IS + 1.4x TC @ 229mm, f/8, 1/1250s, ISO 400):
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/furyk_sand.jpg

Robert Allenby drives off #9 tee (1DsII, 70-200 f/4L IS @ 138mm, f/4, 1/1600s, ISO 200):
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/allenby_drive.jpg