First football shoot....hockeys next

New to the site so thought I'd share a few photos from my first attempt at shooting football.

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I think the first shot has potential, but needs to straightened then cropped tighter. Also, you should make your name less intrusive on the image... on this shot it really kida kills it.

Second shot is great. Not much to do with that one except maybe again soften up you branding.

On the hockey - it has been many years since I have shot hockey, but if you have acces to a Mk II - use it. The 10D is good up to ISO 800, after that you will dealing with heavy noise. It you do truely have "tv lights", well, it might be okay... but use ISO 800 as you bar. ISO 1600 is workable, 3200 is not worth it - no Ninja will help enough. I have shot plenty with both those lenses you list, and both should be fine.

Hey Mark,
Thanks. Those are direct untouched from the camera and I just threw the name there last second and didn't touch it even though I noticed it looked like crap (5am w/ no sleep I guess makes me lazy).

The 10D is what I've been using, the Mk II I'm loaning from Canon before possibly buying the Mk II n. I might have to return it before the hockey game but should have it as my trial ends the same day, a Sat. I did shoot an NHL game years ago but only the stationary shots came out, it was when I first got a film camera and didn't know about settings at all. Havent touched film for 3 years now.

Those football shots I believe were shot at 800 ISO, 1600 I have used for baseball when it's night and I absolutely need a shot of someone but you are right, the 10D at that ISO has a lot of noise.

Nice football shots! I love the little guy in the second picture. He looks so determined!

Thanks! They actually ran that play just to get a photo of him with the ball since he didn't play that much. Pee Wee level my cousin coached at so he set it up.

You use a 50mm f/1.8? I was thinking of looking into one for close ups I do of baseball players. Right now I have a 24-70mm 2.8 Sigma and on sunny days blurring the background seems impossible. I was thinking of getting a straight 2.8 or so to make sure that background gets blurred out. Usual problem is these guys dont have a lot of time for me to be playing with the settings and space can be limited (like this sample - had to go that direction to cut a LOT of people out of the background on the field and waiting in a line for photos to get taken).

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Get an 85mm/1.8 for the portrait shots and use it for basketball, too. Not that I'm trying to corrupt you or anything.

Thanks Liza,
I'm shooting a few games of b-ball when I loan the Mark II (which the Mark II n is probably my next little "toy"). I'm using a 70-200 2.8 Sigma however for that since I don't have the 85mm. Definately going to start looking into it more now though. Next year I'm going to try and land a youth league doing all photos so a lot more portraits would be done. With it at 85 and not say 50mm is there a big difference in fill flash with the farther distance? Another problem I forgot to mention was that since 90% of my portraits are of baseball players they all have hats on as part of the uniform.

Thanks,
Mike