College Soccer with the 70-300mm DO Lens

I had my first chance to shoot a women's college soccer match yesterday and after my lens changes, the only option was the 70-300mm DO lens. As I've written before, this lens has many shortcomings but it's a seriously well constructed lens and post processing can overcome most of the shortcomings.

I used the lens on my last remaining EOS 7D body. This camera is old (2009 design) and even ISO 400 images can be noisy if not exposed properly. I had to use ISO 800 and while some of the early images had more noise than I prefer, I think conditions brightened enough later on so that noise wasn't the biggest issue.

Conditions were wet and chilly and I think the contrast on the files would have been better if not for the misty rain. Each of the RAW files needed increased contrast and sharpness, reduced shadow exposure and a bit of increased brightness to compensate for the contrast and shadow reduction. While doing this to every file added time to processing, my MacBook Air processes files far faster than my old MacBook Pro so it's a faster process over all.

Here are some samples:

You can view a slide show of the gallery here.