Back to Sports

I finally got around to shooting some sports after almost a year. Last year, I was using a 1D Mark III and a 70-200mm f/2.8L non IS lens for high school soccer. This year, both those pieces of gear are gone and I'm using a 7D and a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens.

Using a monopod, I could keep the lens image stabilization on, but I turn it off since it isn't really necessary with the shutter speeds required to freeze action, it uses battery power and the lag while it engages and disengages can be distracting.

I find I get more reliable results deciding on exposure settings for the conditions and setting those manually rather than having the camera's meter constantly changing shutter speeds. For night games at the new artificial turf field where I was shooting this week I found that f/2.8 at 1/750 second at ISO 3200 were good settings. I would have liked to have a 1/1000 second shutter speed but the lighting was not good enough and ISO 3200 is as high as I will push the 7D.

You can view the entire gallery of this year's soccer photos at http://trulandphoto.zenfolio.com/soccer2013. Here are a handful of shots from the past week: