Sports photography is a genre which I’ve little experience.  As it happens, my local city high school is only a few short blocks from my home.  So I thought, “why not call up the school and see if they’d let me photograph a game?”

After a couple of calls, I was able to speak with Athletic Director.  My pitch was simple and honest:  “I’m a local resident and a professional photographer but I have little experience photographing high school football.  If you would be so kind as to provide me the necessary access, I’d be happy to donate my photographs to the school.”  Their response?  “Can you come to tonight’s game?”  I agreed and the I was told which gate to enter as I would have access to special parking and that my name would be at the Ticket Office Will Call.  All I had to do was pack up my gear and head over to the high school.

My first gear choice was to FINALLY break out the Neewer 2-In-1 Rolling Camera Bag:

I picked up this roller bag probably two years ago and just have never had a good opportunity to use it until this football game.  It was a great decision – I had to walk across a long parking lot, and then at least half that distance again snaking around to the front of the home team stands to get in position.  I was able to park it safely against the stand next to where all the cheerleaders had their gear.  Inside I packed both my R5 Mark II and my R6 Mark II (both reviewed here on ThruMyLens).  For lenses I brought my RF 70-200 F2.8 and my new to me EF 100-400 f4.5-5.6.  But like a rookie, I ended dashing out the house without the EF-RF adapter so I could test out my new lens.  It wasn’t a huge loss as I ended doing qute well with the 70-200.  I of course shot in manual mode and started at 1600 ISO, making sure I kept my shutter speed above 1/1000th. When I started shooting the sun was started to set but by end I was shooting just under stadium lighting and to bump up to 3200 ISO (though I suspect I could have pushed to 6400 ISO and been OK image quality wise) and did not dare drop below 1/800th so as to freeze the action.  Here’s a few samples of what I got:

I got a few photos from the half time show as well:

I took about 1000 photos, which I culled down to 70 keepers to provide the school.  Overall I was pretty pleased with what I ended up with, given my relative unfamiliarity with shooting high school football.

LESSONS LEARNED

Football photography is not easy.  I had great access being right on the sidelines, but you really have to fight for a good position because at any moment, sideline team members, coaches, and even refs can wader directly into you frame.  I also quickly learned that someone who knows more about football than I do (that’s pretty much anyone) has a distinct advantage when photographing a game.  Being able to read the plays and having an educated guess about whether the team with the ball would be running or passing, and being able to predict where the ball was going would be a huge help.  So I was moving around a lot up and down the sidelines, trying to find the shot…making sure I wasn’t in anyone’s way. I also decided early on to not try and predict where the action would be, and instead focus on particular players, like the quarterback, receivers, etc.  This turned out to be a pretty good decision as I got a good variety photos instead of missed opportunities trying to guess what was going to happen.  A GREAT gear decision on my part was to bring my snazzy new SIRUI P-242FS monopod (which you can read my review on by clicking here).  It was easy to more around with me going up and down the field and provided great support to my arms didn’t get tired with the weight of the camera and longer lens.

I enjoyed the experience and got pretty decent results.  After I sent the photos to the Athletic Direct, I was invited to photograph every game and provided access to their internal portal for transmitting the images.  This will be great practice for me and a great testing ground for gear.