I was looking through the Google Analytics data today, and I came across this question that someone had searched for: Is the Canon 85mm f/1.8 a good lens for night football photography?

I own a Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens. I love it, for certain things. Night football photography is not one of them. Keep reading…

Saturday was a bright, sunny day.  Mid-60′s.  Not a cloud in the sky, and almost no wind.  Perfect weather…

Unless you’re trying to take pictures.  This kind of harsh sunlight, especially late in the fall when the sun gets low in the sky, highlights an important part of outdoor photography: understanding the sun’s roll as a light source.

Take a look at the picture to the left. Notice the shadows, coming toward us and to the right? Also notice the extreme highlight on the quarterback’s (#7) back? These are clear indicators that the sun is on the other side of the field and to the left. Keep reading…

Photo by: Viele Geischter.

This photo of some football (soccer) players posing together came out of the recent uploads section of Flickr. It’s a great illustration of how to take a quick posed shot outside in the afternoon: find some shade! Look in the background (or in the other pictures in the photostream) and you’ll notice it’s a very bright, sunny day. Put the three lads out in the sun, and they’ll be squinting and have some harsh shadows all over. Instead, they’re sitting in the shade and they’ve got some nice, soft light all around them. One problem with this is your background (if it’s in the sun) will usually get blown out, so don’t expect to get a lot of definition out of it. It can also help to throw in a little bit of fill light from a flash, but you don’t want to over do it.

Photo by: dangorman16.

I didn’t have any inspiration as to what to look for today, so I headed to the recent uploads section of Flickr. There were some slim pickins, and it took me about a dozen reloads before I found this picture which kind of caught my eye. Composition is tough with sports pictures, since you’re often shooting something that’s happening in a split second and you’re confined by your lens and your position relative to the players. So, while this may not be the best composition for this image (I’d be curious to see what the field around the player looked like at the time), the image is still cool. It’s a good example of capturing the right moment at the right time. It looks like the player just landed a nice header going off to his left, and his body is still all contorted from the effort. Not a whole lot o’ time in which to capture that… good job.

Photo by Bo No Bo.

Summer is awesome. But, one of the good things about fall is that football season arrives. Over the years, I’ve lost interest in most other sports, but college football is fun to watch, and high school football is even more fun when you get to roam the sidelines and take pictures of the action. That’s why I dove into the “Football” tag and looked for something good. This might not be the sexiest action pic, but it’s got all the good basics. Tight focus on the subject (the quarterback) and a quick shutter to eliminate the blur. I wonder where the QB is going to throw that ball…

On a side note, it was interesting to see the ratio of soccer pics to American football pics in the “Football” tag. I wonder if that’ll change come the fall/winter…