UWO vs WLU mens football...american football that is

[3oh6]

a showdown of undefeated teams insued today at TD waterhouse stadium in londontown ontario. a good crowd was on hand despite the cool temperatures and it being thanksgiving weekend and all. time for the story in photos...

#1 the calm before the storm...this is not the last you see of this gentleman posing


#2 the mustangs ground game was a little off track early but got some room on this play


#3 the golden hawks on the other hand had a potent running game with #32 putting up 176yds and 2TDs on this day


#4 catch with your hands young man, not your body...the hands


#5 i see the goalline and i am going to cross it...chugga chugga chugga chugga


#6 i realized i don't shoot the kickers enough so i was sure to get a decent one today...any ex or current kickers in the house?


#7 i told you it wouldn't be the last pose from this guy...seen here celebrating a touchdown


#8 this was a metephorical shot for the outcome to the game with laurier ending up on top


#9 and with the game out of hand the tempers started to flare up...play nice boys


the WLU golden hawks left london with their perfect record in-tact and appear to be the class of the OUA this season and deservedly so. all shots with the trusty 20d and 300mm f/4 at 1/1250 in manual with varying ISO as the sun did creep out once in a while. thats right i got clouds and no dance was required.

[QUASIPHOTO]

Great shots!! 3oh6..........just amazing! with your 300mm?

[3oh6]

as always quasi...my moto is, if there is sunlight then the 1.8s stay in the bag, go long or go home now just to turn this little long lens into a big long one. any chance i can put it under my pillow at night and the lens fairy will turn it into a 2.8?? i'll sleep with a kink in my neck if it will.

[transcend]

Great shots. Love seeing what the budget (?) 3 can do. I didn't have as much luck shooting some Junior games this evening with it, great to see it's just me and or bad light!

[Spearin]

Wow, you seem to be pulling off some awesome work with that 300mm!

In the West today, undefeated Saskatchewan took on undefeated Alberta. Alberta is no longer undefeated.

I actually got to use a friend's D70 with a 70-300. Some decent shots came out of it... but nowhere near the quality of yours! Where were you generally positioned and are any of those cropped?

[3oh6]

thanx andrew and transcend, the budget 3 has been a treat to me and i would highly recommend it to anyone looking to shoot field sports casually or when you are just getting into sports photography because you can get used examples like i did for a drop in the bucket compared to the big boys.

it also forces you to really work your distances and shooting style to produce the kind of stuff i have been fortunate enough to come up with. your always thinking about backgrounds and concentrating on getting good distances between you, the subject, and that background to produce the best isolation shots. i have found i get better results going into a game with certain shots in mind and then finding the right time and distances to get and make those shots quality, as opposed to just showing up, throwing the lens around with your finger glued to the shutter. i believe this is making me a much better sports shooter along the way and when the big glass comes i will be able to use this experience and knowledge to produce some solid gavin type stuff.

for CIS football we as photogs have access to anywhere on the sideline we want pretty much. the rule of thumb is stay out of the coaches way but the players don't mind us squeezing in amongst them and crouching down so i will get as far up as the 40-45 yard line if i need to. some shots are cropped a bit for better framing and some like #3 are cropped a decent amount because the 300mm just doesn't have the length to reach across the field. for #6 you can see that the kick is just insed the close hash mark to me and i am about 10 yards up field from the spot of the kick for the angle to get the kickers face. that shot is not cropped at all, that is the full frame. so it gives you a good idea of how far the 300mm can reach on a 20d with the 1.6x. the shots with the smoother backgrounds like #1 and #2 are within 10-15 yards of me so inside the hash mark closest to me when shooting. both of those are cropped only a few pxiels from the original size to frame them perfectly. hope that is the info you were looking for.

Originally Posted by Spearin

In the West today, undefeated Saskatchewan took on undefeated Alberta. Alberta is no longer undefeated.

good to see my boys in green are having a great season this year...i may live in ontario but green is in my blood and always will be. its a shame the riders couldn't pull that one out against the als last night. whats funny about seeing photos and reading about the huskies is that i went to elementry school with steve bilan and worked with his younger brother for a long time a few years ago. now he is this rising football star, i'm a sports shooter and i'm too far away to even shoot him. one day i'm sure his arm will cross paths with my lens.

[stiksandstones]

Nice work 3oh6
I shot some kids stuff for the first time with a 300, seems like a great lens to use...although I did not get quite the shots like you got with it! jealous!ha
So it seems for a job like this you would go Tv mode (you were at 1250 for all?) and not worry about aperture?
Good work, thanks

[3oh6]

Originally Posted by stiksandstones

So it seems for a job like this you would go Tv mode (you were at 1250 for all?) and not worry about aperture?
Good work, thanks

ummm, i normally don't ever shoot in Tv mode and wouldn't recommend it really because then the camera might shrink the aperature to stay at 1/1250 when the light opens up to 1/1600 or higher. then the aperature is not f/4 and closes to f/5.6 or smaller. this is not what you want to happen. for any sports, if your not at the point that you can shoot in manual, i would recommend Av because the aperature is really the most important and keeping it wide open should be first priority.

this then requires you to keep an eye on the light and adjust the ISO to keep the shutters where you want them, in most cases above 1/500 at the least. on this day the cloud cover just happened to not be %100 consistant like it was the other day for the rugby shots i posted. so the sun would come out once in a while and i had to adjust the ISO as i wanted to keep the shuter at 1/1250. why i wanted to keep the shutter at exactly 1/1250? no reason really, i was just practicing adjusting using ISO for when it is absolutely required. if you just wanted to keep the shutter above say 1/600 then throw it in Ap, set the aperature to the lowest your lens offers and let the camera take care of the shutters. if they start to fall down to or around 1/600 then up the ISO.

the mens rugby shots i posted the other day and the womens i will post soon were all shot at ISO 400 - 1/1250 - f/4 and the exposure didn't change a bit because the cloud cover was consistant. i need to get a hand held meter to aid in metering to adjust because i like shooting in manual but for now i just keep a grey card handy or meter off the grass or my hand. HTH

[gmen]

These are outstandingly good - #8 is probably the best 'American' football shot I've seen on here - the action is coming out of the screen right at ya...and it's tight, tight, tight...

---- Gavin

[3oh6]

cheers Gavin, #8 was one of my favs too. tight tight tight...nothin but, remember who i have learned from

oh yeah, the gallery of the rest of the photos from the game are up on my mustangs site...here is the link...
http://uwo.3oh6.com/051008_m_football/