The football season returns...

[gmen]

A welcome chance to shoot some football again this week. A couple of evening games, so a real mixed bag of lighting conditions, from bright sunshine to gloom in the space of half an hour... here are a few of the shots...

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/de002.jpg

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/de007.jpg

The first goal of the new season...

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/de006.jpg

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/de003.jpg

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/de001.jpg

And another goal...

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/de004.jpg

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/de005.jpg

[DwightMcCann]

Oh, you mean 'Soccer'! :-) Fun shots.

[MazerRakhm]

Ouch, it looks like they might've bumped heads rather hard on that fifth one!

I love the expression of the guy in blue staring at the ball in the third shot!

[PhilHannah]

By the look of things it seems you are allowed to wander up and down the pitch, where as up here the SPL restricts us to spots behind each goal for snappers.

Lighting must have been getting poor as I see youve got Blurry Balls:o in some of the shots-Number 2 seems abit soft -then again could be my display.what lens do you use?

I would have preferred No 3 maybe cropped in a bit though maybe round the Goalie and the guy to the right... Then again youd have to cut the people in half in the background so that wouldnt work, depends on the circumstances...

I dont do much footie since we were relegated to the First Division, but roll on start of the season-I may take a wander up to McDiarmid Park (wouldnt be difficult its next door!)

Wont do evening games though, floodlights are so poor your often down to 1/250th sec-not good enough

Most of my footie Stuff was done in the days before digital-Ill have to scan the negs one day..


Great Pics!

[gmen]

By the look of things it seems you are allowed to wander up and down the pitch, where as up here the SPL restricts us to spots behind each goal for snappers.

Lighting must have been getting poor as I see youve got Blurry Balls:o in some of the shots-Number 2 seems abit soft -then again could be my display.what lens do you use?

I would have preferred No 3 maybe cropped in a bit though maybe round the Goalie and the guy to the right... Then again youd have to cut the people in half in the background so that wouldnt work, depends on the circumstances...

I dont do much footie since we were relegated to the First Division, but roll on start of the season-I may take a wander up to McDiarmid Park (wouldnt be difficult its next door!)

Wont do evening games though, floodlights are so poor your often down to 1/250th sec-not good enough

Most of my footie Stuff was done in the days before digital-Ill have to scan the negs one day..

Great Pics!

Cheers for your comments Phil.

I generally work from the sidelines as far as possible rather than behind the goal, so that's where all these shots are taken from - a spot about 10-15 yards down from the halfway line. Like you say, that's not always possible - but it's my preference whenever I can.

As for the 'blurry balls' :eek: I was only able to shoot the second-half of one of the games as my other shoot that evening was a speedway meeting just down the road (starting at 7.45pm). So I landed at the football match at 8.45pm just as the light was getting pretty poor (I could do with some of your long, light Scottish evenings at this time of year!)

I was shooting on my old 1D (the MkII was at CPS for its first routine service), the paper needed to run a pretty large pic at nearly half page for the back cover, so I limited myself to ISO1250 plus a bit of noise reduction and shot a few frames at 1/500s and then 1/400s (as low as I'd ever want to go really). With the MkII, I'd have had no worries about cranking the ISO up to 1600 or 3200, but the old 1D is dreadfully poor at the high end of the ISO range even for newspaper repro.

These are all shot with a 300mm f/2.8L - looks like I didn't run image #2 through my normal unsharp mask action for the web - just corrected that - thanks for pointing it out! Again it was also shot at 1/500s so there's a bit of motion blur on the extremities!

I've done a few of the Scottish grounds on my travels... but have to say St Johnstone's not one of them. You're right about the floodlighting at some of these grounds though, it can be dire. I have to say my next investment is likely to be a 200mm f/1.8L which would get me out of a hole on many an occasion!

--- Gavin

[Jonny]

Oh, you mean 'Soccer'!

NO, he meant football. You meant soccer
;)

[Croasdail]

I've done a few of the Scottish grounds on my travels... but have to say St Johnstone's not one of them. You're right about the floodlighting at some of these grounds though, it can be dire. I have to say my next investment is likely to be a 200mm f/1.8L which would get me out of a hole on many an occasion!

I've seen a few of these floating on the used market and have resisted picking one up but with fall around the corner... I have been giving it more consideration. I haven't shot high school football in a long time but have thought of doing a few games and it would really come in handy with the lousy lighting at the schools. Anyway.....

Great shots as always. I was surprised to see the noise... but you explained it. Cheers!

[condyk]

NO, he meant football. You meant soccer
;)

:lol: :lol: :lol: