Shooting my first MLS soccer game - San Jose Earthquakes vs Philadelphia Union

Many months ago, I was invited by John Todd, the San Jose Earthquakes team photographer, to photograph one of their MLS Soccer games.  With my crazy schedule, the only game I could shoot was last night's match.  So last night I was able to join many of my fellow photographer friends and capture photos at my first ever professional soccer match. 

Before the game started, the team mascot (Q Mascot) wanted to get photos with some of us. I think he liked my camera gear. My buddy, John Lozano shot this photo of me and Q (yeah we are now on a first name basis).

And...of course, I had to reciprocate and get a picture of John and Q.

I was behind the net, prepping my camera gear when Krazy George walked by, getting the crowd into the spirit. For those of you who are not familiar with Krazy George. This guy has been leading cheers all over the US for many many years, and he is credited for starting the first "wave". I remember him stirring up the crowd back in my day at San Jose State University. We laughed about the old days and then he struck this pose for me.

I heard a loud commotion across the field and saw the rowdy San Jose Ultras waving their flags and cheering. I grabbed my Canon 5D Mark IV, with the Canon 24-70mm lens, and ran over for some photos. As soon as I saw the flags waving, I slowed my shutter speed of my camera to get some motion in the flags (also hoping the flag waver would keep his head still). I shot this photo at 1/30th of a second to get my desired effect.

This was one of my first shots of the game. As you can see from the first photo in this blog post, my main camera for this sport was the Canon 1D X Mark II married up with the Canon 200-400mm beast of a lens. I had both of those mounted on my Gitzo monopod, and chose to use one of my Acratech ball heads on top to easily take the camera on and off the monopod.

As always, I look for action and reaction. I saw the referee raise the yellow card and took this shot. I was not intending the capture the one player spitting, I promise you that.

The referee came over to review the video and since I was standing 15 feet from this, I figured it would make a good photo. Remember, the job of a photographer is to tell a story, and this is part of the story.

Since this was my first professional soccer game, it took me a while to determine the best shots, but I did find myself watching for high balls which might lead to headers.

Shooting at 14 frames per second was helpful in capturing the peak of action on the field.

More reactions captured during the game, with one player pleading his case and another down on the ground.

The San Jose Earthquakes scored the first goal, and I was happy to have a clear shot of the celebration.

Here is another good action shot. And...for those of you wondering about my camera settings, I shot almost everything at ISO 3200, f/4, at 1/1000 second.

This game was key for the team, as they really needed a win to help earn a playoff spot. But the team's top player, Chris "Wondo" Wondolowski, was red carded during the last game and not able to suit up. He announced that he would join the San Jose Ultra in their area, and cheer with them. 

At half time, Q was back for more photos...

...and the fans in the Ultra area was boisterous as ever!

Wondo" was cheering right with them, and the fans were loving it.

John captured this image of me as I moved from one area of the field to another.

I was back to capturing the action during the second half.

The Earthquakes had a chance to go up 2 to 0 as Carlos Fierro sprinted forward and took a shot on net. As you can see, I was not in the best position to capture the shot (without the post in the frame), but it still tells a story. His did not score on this shot, since it was determined that the play was offside.

Shortly after the Earthquakes thought they were up 2 to 0, the Union scored a goal and tied the game. Using the long reach of the 200-400mm lens, I locked focus on Daniel Vega (the goalie) from the opposite side of the field, and got this shot of him diving for the ball.

This is the uncropped version of the same shot.

The Union quickly scored a second goal, and Wondo reacted to his team being down. He did his best to get his team rallied. 

The Earthquakes played hard, but could not even the tally.

The final whistle blew and the game was over.  I saw Danny Hoesen down on the ground, processing the loss.

Nearby, Andre Blake (the goal tender from the Philadelphia Union) and some of his teammates celebrated their victory.

Even though the home team did not come out victorious, I had a great time shooting the game. Thanks so much to John Todd (and John Lozano) for invitation and for the fun evening. I look forward to shooting soccer again. It might be in the San Jose area or it might be in Tokyo during the upcoming Summer Olympics. 

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If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

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Photos captured in Tanzania by our photo tour attendees

After returning from Costa Rica a couple of months ago, I thought it would be fun to post images that my photo tour attendees took on the trip. The feedback was so good that I thought I would do it again, this time from our recent trip to Tanzania.

Unlike the Costa Rica trip where none of our attendees were professional photographers, we did have two professional photographers on this trip. But, the group consisted mainly of photo enthusiasts and we even had one guest who came with only a point-and-shoot camera. I think you will be impressed with what she captured with her light weight little friend (posted at the end of this blog post).

I asked all the guests to submit their favorite images. I hope you enjoy what they captured...

This shot was taken by one of the professional photographers on the trip. I have to admit, this is my favorite image submitted. Just beautiful!

All the images above were captured with DSLR cameras and long zoom lenses. As you can tell, the images that people captured were really excellent. What really impressed me while on the trip, was the images that one of our guests captured with a little Canon SX70 point-and-shoot camera. The following images were captured with that camera. Pretty impressive!

What these images show us is that having a big camera and lens is not an absolute requirement for a trip to Africa, especially if that person is not a professional photographer and worried about every detail of the shot.  Not everyone is capable of holding a DSLR camera and large zoom lens, but they can still come away with great photos and even better memories!

Thanks to all the photo tour attendees who submitted their photos, and congratulations on the amazing collection of images you all captured.

__________________________________________________________________________
Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________ 

How to photograph with motion blur and do it correctly

If you have followed my work any time over the past ten years, you know that I do a lot of motion pan photography. I have done this for a couple of reasons:

1. I love the final outcome of the photos.
2. This effect allows me to show a subject to you all in a different way.
3. The technique is difficult to master and presents me with a great challenge.
4. Most people do not shoot this way, and so this helps me create unique photos.

For those of you not familiar with this type of shooting, let me explain how this works. To create a motion pan image, I purposely change the shutter speed of my camera to a very slow speed and then I take photos of my subject while panning the lens at the exact same speed as my subject. The speed of the shutter really depends on the speed of my subject and my ability to track that subject as it passes by me. For fast moving subjects the shutter speed might be 1/100th sec and with slower moving subjects the shutter speed might be as low as 1/4th sec.

There are three ways to achieve a slow the shutter speed:

* Shoot at a time when there is not a lot of sunlight (early in the day, late in the day or on a day with overcast skies)
* Adjust your ISO down to 100 (or even 50) and lower your aperture to something like f/22 or f/36
* Use an ND filter in front of your lens to cut down the amount of light coming into the camera.

Having just come back from another safari in Africa, I thought I would share more motion pan shots from this trip.  But first...

Two years ago I took this photo of a zebra running in Tanzania. It is one of the most requested images I have ever taken. The shutter speed of this shot was 1/30th sec (ISO 100, f/22). I was lucky enough to get the face of the zebra nice and sharp with nice motion in the legs, and all hoofs of the ground.

I even tried motion panning this group of zebras to see how that would turn out. Some people might love this and some might hate it, but I really like the effect.

Here are some wildebeests running through the plains of Tanzania (taken at 1/30th sec).

With the success of these previous images, I was challenged to create some more this time around.

Before starting our safari, Mike (the owner of M&M Photo Tours) and I arrived a day earlier than the rest of the group for a couple of meetings. Towards the end of the day, I decided to walk along the main road to check out a local marketplace. I grabbed my Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon 24-105mm lens and went for a walk. There was not a lot to photograph in the outdoor market, but I saw the opportunity to shoot some of the passing traffic at slow shutter speeds. I took this photo of a local motorcyclist at 1/25th second as he breezed by me.

I saw this oncoming truck filled with banana leaves and wondered if I could motion pan it. Because the truck was so close to me, I was only able to get the middle of the frame sharp, but I like the effect nonetheless.

As I mentioned, this technique is not easy to master and not every one of my attempts yields top notch photos. I saw this jackal walking in the Serengeti and tried to motion pan it at 1/15th sec. As you can see, it was moving so slowly that there is not tons of movement in its legs and the face is not tack sharp. A good try but...

A couple of days later, I had better luck with this running giraffe. As soon as I saw the giraffe start to run, I quickly rolled my ISO down to 100 and changed my aperture to f/11. This gave me a shutter speed of 1/15th sec and I shot numerous photos (at the slow burst rate of the Canon 1D X Mark II) while panning the Canon 100-400mm lens along with the running giant.

Since we up in the northern area of the Serengeti for the Great Migration, I thought it appropriate to motion pan some of the wildebeests migrating. Since these guys were moving pretty slowly, I changed my shutter speed to 1/6th sec to capture the movement. I panned with the animal closest to me and hoped for more motion in background animals.

I saw this one wildebeest who stopped to check us out. Since he was standing so still, I decided to shoot with a slow shutter speed, and hold steady on him. For that 1/10th sec he stood still while most of the other wildebeest maintained their movement.  I would have preferred more movement in the background, but since I did not have a tripod to hold an even longer shutter speed, this was the best I could do.

We watched as a group of Impala jumped ahead of our vehicle. After capturing a couple of photos at 1/1000 sec, I slowed the shutter once again and took this at 1/40th sec.

On our last day on safari, we watched as thousands of wildebeests crossed the Mara river. Towards the end of the pack, I had already taken hundreds of photos at fast shutter speeds and thought it would be a good idea to bring motion into these photos.  My goal was to show the motion of the migration.

Both of these migration shots were taken at 1/15th sec, and show you a different view of the scene that unfolded in front of us.

I hope that the next time you have a chance to try motion panning, that you give it a try. Remember that this technique takes practice and some patience as well. It works best with subjects that do not move their heads a lot when moving, since the goal is to get the face really sharp with movement in other areas of the body.

It might take tens or hundreds of photos to get one you love, but the end result is worth it!

__________________________________________________________________________
Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________