Advice on photographing football (soccer for US people reading)

[gilespj]

Hi all,

I wandering if you had any advice for photographing football, I have been shooting sports for yours but not done football. Now I have a local news paper asking me to get some images of a couple of games, primarily concentrating on one team.

My basic plan is to use 60d with sigma 150-500mm, 5d mk ii with my 70-200mm.

I am borrowing an other crop frame camera I planning to use as a remote with a 20-35mm if its low end and if it good enough replace my 5d mk ii (possibly using the 24-105mm) and using the full frame for remote.

My plan was to set up on the side line a approximately level with the edge of the 18 yard box. I was also thinking about doing some from one end of the pitch so that I can capture the players coming to me.

Thank you

 

[Roo]

This guy shoots a bit of football with a 6d. He may be able to give you some tips

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=23146.0

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

I'm from Brazil, and I know the difficulty in photographing football. In principle, stand on the side of the field where your team makes goal, and the second time to change the side along with his team.

A camera behind the goal net can make very impactful photos with ultra wide lens, triggered by remote control when the ball approaches the goal (even if the goalie can defend).

Your 60D with Sigma 150-500 should be enough to photograph the players at a distance, if the game happens to sunlight. But there may be shadows in some parts of the lawn that require ISO above 1600 to freeze the motion.

Your 5D Mark ii with 70-200 will serve well when players are near you. Be very careful when the ball goes in your direction. It is better to lose a good picture than be knocked out by the ball.

 

[dawid_gaszynski]

Dawid Gaszyński


Today I saw a similar question on another forum.

In my opinion the most important thing in sports photography is to separate the players from the background.
This can be done with a light lens type 2.8 - maybe 4.0.

I have seen many pictures of the dark lens 500mm 6.3 and it looked bad. DOF was large. Players were not separated from the background. Background was not blurred.

In my opinion for shooting football does not need to 500mm focal length.

I photographed 50D + 300mm 2.8 L IS USM, now I have a 6D. With this good image quality can crop heavily and the background, and so is more blurred than the 500mm 6.3.

The most attractive situations in the game are between mid-field and near the area.

I prefer 300mm 4.0 than 500mm 6.3 - is at a similar price.

I would add that I always sit behind the end line. Near the corner.

I invite you to my topic in this forum. There you can see the original frames from camera and after cropping.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

It is possible that they might limit you to certain areas to shoot from. Often they let you shoot from the endline from the outer penalty box to the corner and then up the sideline from the corner partway up, sometimes all the way, although usually not from right in the benches area if you are on that side. Sometimes it is free reign (although almost always immediately behind the penalty box or at least the goal is not allowed).

The inner outer endline often works very well. So does from about where you suggested. Sometimes I track up and down the sidelines. If one and only one spot could be used I guess I'd go for the inner part of the outer end line. But I like to also always do at least a bit from around where you mentioned and some tracking up and down when allowed.

I almost might use the longer lens on the FF. I bet the 5D2 has better AF than the 60D. I thought the 5D2 (center point with hidden assists) tracked better than my 50D did. Then just use the 60D for the few times 150mm is still too long on FF. And with 500mm lens reach you should be able to frame reasonably well and manage to get away without the 60D reach. You could swap and do some with each, get some advantage of the 5D2 IQ for all the shots than can be framed as desired and for the better AF and then some shooting with the 60D so you get some of the distant shots with best reach.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Don't try to rely on fast fps for headers, the fps are not nearly fast enough, you'll just get ball way before or way after the header. It's not easy to time it yourself, but you should do noticeably better than spray and total pray fps reliance.

But don't be afraid to spray all sorts of bursts as you never know when a arm will fly up and block out a shot badly or whatnot so the more close to key frames of genera action melees you can get the better.

Try to not let the zoom lure you into the ease of shooting too loose, try to keep things framed as super tightly as you can manage. You may wish to keep the other eye open at times to help tracking and keep track of wider goings on on the field, although may be more necessary for American football.

I imagine you are well familiar with the game and that should help. If you have ever played soccer at a decently high level that should really help your shooting the game even much moreso, especially if you were the sort of player who had a great head for the game and always saw where the ball would go next and how things were building.

Oh and set the cams to max frame rate, AI servo. Shoot the 5D2 RAW only to maintain buffer (or maybe you can do jpg only if you don't care about the ultimate in image quality). Not sure what the 60D buffer is, that camera was a bit crippled AFAIK compared to even 50D in some ways, it might need to be shot jpgs only, not sure.

Don't be afraid to fire off hundreds of shots during the game, shooting is free (other than shutter wear, but whatever), so fire away without thought whenever you feel like it.

Deadlines for newspapers are sometimes rough though, you may want to cull as much as you can during half and even during lull points in action, it all depends.

Don't use IS/OS (not unless conditions are utterly dire, like super high ISO and still getting only 1/320th wide open, in which case you are in trouble regardless).

Try to never let the shutter below 1/640th if possible and even going below 1/800th is not so great. If you can do 1/2000th and up that is much better. Tend to favor fear of slow shutter more than fear of higher ISO noise.

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

Whatever happens, get out of the way of ball.

 

[AcutancePhotography]

I imagine you are well familiar with the game and that should help. If you have ever played soccer at a decently high level that should really help your shooting the game even much moreso, especially if you were the sort of player who had a great head for the game and always saw where the ball would go next and how things were building.

I would opine that this is more important than the equipment. Knowing the flow of the game so you can anticipate the shots. I feel that good sports shooter not only know photography but also know their sport.