2022 Cross country

I have used it almost exclusively this season. I used the EF 100-400 for one meet. Even used the EF 70-300 on the 7DII for a couple of races.

I can see the draw to the 70-300. With the 70-200 I certainly could have benefitted from picking the runners up a bit farther away, but I'm not sure I'd give up f/2.8 for it. There's little use for anything shorter, though, as the runners are almost past you by the time 70 is too long.

I kept the 70-200 on all day. Never used the 1.4x. I found two places that I liked, plus the start line, and basically ran between them during the races. 57 schools in attendance but I only shot two of them; 1200 frames and I posted 90. Kept one per runner per pass when possible, just so everyone had something. Main album here for now.

Many XC courses have the access to allow you to be pretty close to the runners, so a 70-200 will work, whether on FF or crop body. I love the color/contrast that I get with the EF 70-300 and EF 100-400, plus I have a bit more reach if I want it. My 70-200 is the Tamron G2 and I like the images that I get from it as well. Sometime I should shoot with each of the lenses at the same meet. It would be quite a bit to haul around however!

Have a big invitational in a couple of weeks, boys/girls and all 4 classes will be running.

College invite here last weekend.

Had a bit of rain for the men's race. R6 and EF 100-400L were no worse for wear...

From a 100 school XC Invite in Balboa Park in San Diego last weekend

One nice thing about XC is that you can generally get access to get great shots with any number of lenses that can get great shots! Don't need a giant telephoto for good action shots.

Another XC Invite in SoCal last weekend on a golf course. Almost all of my shots at the meet were taken with a Canon EF 70-200 4L IS II. The day was really bright and sunny with no clouds.

Hard to get subject isolation with the BG so close. That said, it's not mandatory to soften the BG and it's sometimes nice to see the athlete more in context; the second shot is particularly nice because the BG is pretty clean and vibrant.

This young man set the new state record yesterday. 5k in 14:51 on a legit course (not flat)

duckster wrote in post #19425128
My daughter used to love rainy races...

Hosted photo: posted by duckster in
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forum: Sports

duckster,

Saw you used a 18-135 Lens on this pic. I have thought about using that lens as a change up but wondered if it would track/focus fast enough. What did you think?

I had both the EF-S 18-135 STM and the NanoUSM. Both are good lenses from an IQ perspective. After using both for awhile, I ended up selling the STM version and kept the newer NanoUSM version. I think the AF is faster on the Nano version although the STM version is really pretty good, especially for XC where the runners are not going full speed. For a lot of the courses around here, 18-135 on a crop body works really well for a general use XC lens. Gets wide enough to get team photos without changing lenses

A Friday morning Junior College XC Meet in Balboa Park in San Diego - Women. Beautiful conditions to take pictures.

A Friday morning Junior College XC Meet in Balboa Park in San Diego - Men. Beautiful conditions to take pictures.