Women's Playoff Soccer Under the Lights

It has been several years since I've owned a lens fast enough (light wise) to shoot field sports at night. I bought my 200mm f/2.8 prime lens as an economic way to obtain that kind of lens.

While I did shoot a handful of frames with the full frame 5D Mark III and 70-200mm f/4 lens the vast majority of the 475 files I ended up with were made with the 7D Mark II and 200mm f/2.8 lens. The way I shoot at night is with manual settings based on the level of lighting on the field. I meter the grass and under expose a bit. This avoids ridiculous swings in exposure based on the color of the jerseys in the frame.

On Elmore Field, the settings are 1/750th of a second and ISO 3200 with an f/2.8 lens and the same shutter speed and ISO 6400 with an f/4 lens. I added 111 images to the gallery at https://trulandphotography.com/hwsoc2019. I get one more chance this Saturday with the Empire 8 conference final between Hartwick College and Utica College.

Here are some samples, all with the 7D Mark II and 200mm f/2.8 lens.

Sports and Scenics

A quick trip to Oneonta and back today yielded 113 new images to this year's Hartwick Women's Soccer gallery (https://trulandphotography.com/hwsoc2019) and some fall foliage(ish) scenics from the campus. The scenics were made with the 5D Mark III and 24-105mm lens and the sports shots were made with the 7D Mark II and 70-200mm lens.

Men's College Soccer

The EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens arrived today just in time for a trip to Hartwick College for a men's soccer match with Alfred University. The lens performed well with the 7D Mark II body.

A 101 image gallery can be viewed at https://trulandphotography.com/hmsoc2019. Here are a few samples.

And here's a shot from the 5D Mark III and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens made at halftime.

First College Soccer of the Season

Last year I only shot a game and a half of Hartwick College Women's Soccer. This year I have the ten frame per second 7D Mark II body which is ideal for field sports like soccer. Yesterday was my first time out with that body for soccer and it didn't disappoint.

I ended up with almost 20 gigabytes of RAW files and went through over half of a battery. I ended up with 105 images to start off this year's Hartwick gallery which you can view at https://trulandphotography.com/hwsoc2019.

I chose a poor location in Hartwick's attacking half of the field the first half as they players coming toward me were backlit. Movement of the sun and the exchange of ends of the field made for ideal lighting in the second half.

Here are some examples of shots from the second half. The match, with St. John Fisher, ended in a 0-0 draw.

Jet Ski Looping the Loop

At Lake Orion, Michigan this afternoon. Canon 7d Mark II and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens.

Division 1 Women's Soccer

I had the opportunity yesterday afternoon to shoot from the sidelines of the America East Conference Women's Soccer Final at the State University at Albany's multi use stadium. Casey Stadium is an impressive venue with a nice big scoreboard/jumbotron. I'm not a fan, however, of the distraction caused by lines for every sport imaginable cluttering up a soccer pitch.

I used my two 5D Mark III bodies, one with the EF 24-105mm f/4 lens and the other with the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 lens. The images below are from both setups.

There are 136 images in the gallery located at https://trulandphoto.zenfolio.com/aeastfinal.

Congratulations to the home side who won the match 5-1 and will move on to the NCAA playoffs.

Nighttime Sports With A Slow Lens

I hadn't been planning any nighttime sports shooting this year, or last for that matter, because I really don't have lenses long enough for field sports that are fast enough for the required shutter speed at ISO levels that aren't ridiculously high.

A lens with an f/2.8 maximum aperture and a 70-200mm lens with a crop sensor body or a longer zoom with a full frame body are the minimum recommended gear for such work. My only lens longer than 105mm at this point is my 70-300mm f/4-5.6 zoom. This means that at the longer end of the zoom I'm getting two stops, or four times, less light than an f/2.8 lens.

After watching the first half of Hartwick Women's Soccer from the sidelines sans camera, I decided at halftime to go out to the car and see what I could do. Full frame cameras have much better image quality at high ISO settings than crop sensor bodies due to their lower noise levels so I thought maybe I could get the ISO high enough for fast enough shutter speeds.

This all depends on the light level of the field, of course. Three years ago I shot a match at a poorly lit field which I wrote about here. Exposure settings on that occasion were f/2.8, 1/750th second at ISO 4000. I was using a crop sensor 7D so that was pushing the ISO. The other night, I was stuck with a two stop slower aperture of f/5.6 and settled on a shutter speed of 1/500th second. ISO needed was 6400. But, I was using a 5D Mark III so the noise level was much better.

The two sets of RAW files were very similar, mostly underexposed but able to be brightened in processing. The 5DIII files were much less noisy. If you do the exposure math, the field the other night was about one EV more brightly lit than the field three years ago.

Here are some samples from the match which Hartwick won 2-0, securing their place in the Empire 8 playoffs next weekend.