From the Winter Olympics to High School LaCrosse

It has been a couple of months since I have returned from the Winter Olympics and I really have not photographed any sporting events since then. It is not that I was tired of it, I was just too busy doing other things and did not have a chance to get out to any games. So...this last weekend, my son asked me to go with him to watch his friend, David, play LaCrosse. I shot the game with a Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 100-400 L series lens and I gave Connor a Canon 40D with a Tamron 28-300mm lens so that he could shoot the game along side me.


You can tell by the shadows, that the game was right in the middle of the afternoon with the sun high above. Not the best time to shoot sports outside, but most leagues don't plan their schedules around shooting conditions so you have to make do with what you have. :)

That is Connor's friend, David, jumping off the ground to defend a play.




Like shooting some of the games at the Olympics, I was photographing a sport that I had never seen before. This is not ideal, since it really helps to know the game to get the best shots. But the kids played hard and showed some great expressions as they competed. Connor and I had a great time shooting together and he got some very good shots too.

Photo notes: All of these shots were taken with the Canon 5D Mark II in Aperture Priority mode at an ISO of 400. Depending on the lighting, the shots ranged from 1/1000 to 1/2000 sec. I used AI Servo focus mode (center dot only) to track the kids. I used a 32GB Lexar 600x Professional CompactFlash card and did not even get close to filling it since I was shooting in SRAW.